tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/eu-citizens-30939/articlesEU citizens – The Conversation2019-01-22T13:37:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1102192019-01-22T13:37:24Z2019-01-22T13:37:24ZSettled status for EU citizens – Q&A with law expert on what it does and doesn't guarantee<p><em>As a result of Brexit and the expected end to free movement of people that will accompany it, all EU citizens (other than Irish citizens) living in the UK will soon be required to register for <a href="https://theconversation.com/eu-citizens-what-settled-status-after-brexit-really-means-a-legal-expert-explains-97810">a new type of “settled status”</a>. On January 21, the day her government began the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families/when-to-apply">next stage of its pilot</a> testing of the settled status application scheme, Theresa May announced that EU citizens would no longer be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/21/may-drops-65-fee-for-eu-nationals-seeking-post-brexit-settled-status">charged a £65 application fee</a>. What does settled status mean, and how would it change if the UK left the EU without a Brexit deal?</em> </p>
<p><strong>Q: Does settled status still act as a guarantee that an EU citizen can live or work in the UK in the case of a no-deal Brexit?</strong> </p>
<p>Official government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families">guidance</a> has confirmed that in the case of no-deal Brexit, the settled status scheme will still apply. However, if the UK left the EU without a deal on March 29, 2019, the timeframe would be sped up.</p>
<p>No deal means the planned <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-transition-what-will-and-wont-change-for-britons-after-march-2019-107558">transition period</a>, scheduled until the end of December 2020, would not happen. Under a no-deal scenario, settled status would only be available for those EU citizens resident in the UK before March 29 2019 – and those who qualified by that date would have only until December 31 2020 to put in their application. </p>
<p>If a deal is passed, while still subject to what is ultimately agreed, it is assumed that eligible EU citizens would have until June 30 2021 to submit their application. So it is clear that no-deal Brexit leaves EU citizens with a lot less room for error or delay.</p>
<p><strong>Q: Will settled status give an EU citizen the same rights they are afforded now, while the UK is still in the EU?</strong></p>
<p>The idea is that yes, settled status should guarantee the same rights currently enjoyed by EU citizens taking advantage of EU free movement rules. This includes health care, pensions and other benefits and services in the UK. </p>
<p>While EU citizens who already have <a href="https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families/if-you-have-permanent-residence-or-indefinite-leave-to-remain">indefinite leave to remain</a> in the UK can apply for settled status, they do not have to. Settled status means they can live for up to five years in a row outside of the UK and still return, compared to two years in a row with indefinite leave to remain. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/what-the-eus-rules-on-free-movement-allow-all-its-citizens-to-do-62186">What the EU's rules on free movement allow all its citizens to do</a>
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<p>According to the government’s <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/762222/Policy_paper_on_citizens__rights_in_the_event_of_a_no_deal_Brexit.pdf">policy paper on no-deal implications</a>, any settled EU citizens in the UK before March 29 2019 could have close family join them until March 29 2022. After this time, any family wishing to join EU citizens in the UK would be subject to a future new immigration system, under which the government <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/766672/The-UKs-future-skills-based-immigration-system-accessible-version.pdf">intends</a> to treat EU and non-EU nationals arriving in the UK the same.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254945/original/file-20190122-100282-1wv2cjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254945/original/file-20190122-100282-1wv2cjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=397&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254945/original/file-20190122-100282-1wv2cjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=397&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254945/original/file-20190122-100282-1wv2cjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=397&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254945/original/file-20190122-100282-1wv2cjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=499&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254945/original/file-20190122-100282-1wv2cjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=499&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254945/original/file-20190122-100282-1wv2cjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=499&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A no-deal Brexit would change the application deadlines for EU citizens.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alex Segre/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p><strong>Q: What will happen to an EU citizen who has not secured pre-settled or settled status by the deadline?</strong> </p>
<p>The “deadline” for a settled status application changes in the case of a no-deal Brexit – and March 29 2019 becomes a much more important date. Any EU citizen not resident in the UK before this date would no longer be eligible for settlement. This has wide-reaching implications for deportation. </p>
<p>Deportation of EU citizens is something the EU has <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-britain-can-deport-eu-citizens-according-to-the-law-86896">extremely high protection against</a>. But in the case of a no-deal scenario the high standard of protection against deportation currently governed by EU law would apply in the UK only until March 29 2019. </p>
<p>After this, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/30/crossheading/deportation-of-criminals">UK law</a> will apply to EU nationals as well as non-EU nationals. It allows anyone considered to be a “foreign criminal” to be deported automatically. If, under UK law, EU citizens who fail to secure settled status before the deadline are considered “foreign criminals” by the government, then there is a chance they could be liable to deportation.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, even if a Brexit deal is reached, there are still questions surrounding how protected an EU citizen will be from deportation after any transition period. </p>
<p><strong>Q: Once somebody has pre-settled status, do they need to do anything in particular to get settled status?</strong></p>
<p>Pre-settled status grants the same rights as settled status. At the moment, an EU citizen who applies and is granted pre-settled status (because they had not yet been in the UK for five years), will have to apply for settled status once they are eligible if they want to remain in the UK. </p>
<p>The details are unclear as to how difficult or long-winded this process will be, though the message has consistently been that the whole process will be “<a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/718237/EU_Settlement_Scheme_SOI_June_2018.pdf">streamlined and user-friendly</a>”. But it remains unclear what would happen to someone with pre-settled status who fails to apply for settled status, and this could raise concerns for anybody who fails to grasp that this second step is needed.</p>
<p><strong>Q: Can EU citizens apply to become British citizens once they have acquired settled status?</strong></p>
<p>British citizenship is always available to anybody who meets the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/british-citizenship">criteria</a>. In the original <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/766672/The-UKs-future-skills-based-immigration-system-accessible-version.pdf">statement of intent</a> about the programme from the Home Office published June 2018, settled status would replace the status of having indefinite leave to remain. </p>
<p>This means that an EU national granted settled status would be able to apply for British citizenship immediately if they were a spouse or civil partner of a British national and had lived in the UK for at least three years (though to get settled status they would need to have been resident for five years anyway). They could also apply immediately if they had held indefinite leave to remain for more than a year. Otherwise, they would have to wait a year after getting settled status to apply for British citizenship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrienne Yong has previously consulted for The3Million campaign group. She received funding from City Pump Priming Scheme on a research project about the post-Brexit effect on the right to private and family life of EU citizens in the UK.</span></em></p>The government has abandoned its plan to charge £65 for EU citizens applying for 'settled status' after Brexit – but what does it secure.Adrienne Yong, Lecturer at The City Law School, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1090942018-12-19T19:06:29Z2018-12-19T19:06:29ZUK's new post-Brexit immigration plan is surreal and cynical<p>The publication of the British government’s <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/766465/The-UKs-future-skills-based-immigration-system-print-ready.pdf">white paper</a> for a post-Brexit immigration system is long overdue. But coming so late in the day, with such uncertainty continuing about what Brexit will look like, much of what’s being proposed feels quite surreal.</p>
<p>The UK’s immigration system is currently a malfunctioning mess. It’s overly complicated, opaque and weighed down with political and social expectations that cannot be met. It’s been <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldeucom/82/82.pdf">consistently castigated</a> by senior legal figures for being so labyrinthine that even immigration lawyers have difficulty navigating it. It’s expensive, intrusive, and places unreasonable burdens on citizens, including landlords, health service workers and lecturers, to act as if they were <a href="https://theconversation.com/compliant-environment-turning-ordinary-people-into-border-guards-should-concern-everyone-in-the-uk-107066">employed as border guards</a>. The current system can also end up <a href="http://www.irr.org.uk/news/the-windrush-scandal-exposes-the-dangers-of-scaremongering-about-illegal-immigrants/">unfairly discriminating</a> by ethnicity. </p>
<p>Many of these shortcomings are acknowledged in the Home Office’s white paper, and the potential clarity the eventual publication of this document brings to the debate on the UK’s future immigration policy is welcome. </p>
<p>In the immediate aftermath of the white paper’s publication, much was made of the absence of a numerical target <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-immigration-javid/uks-post-brexit-immigration-system-will-not-include-net-migration-target-idUSKBN1OI0OI">for net migration</a>. But this is a red herring. The target has been politically dead in the water since before the 2016 referendum. </p>
<h2>Devil in the detail</h2>
<p>There are other, rather more fundamental changes in the government’s new plans for both migrants and employers. The resident labour market test will be scrapped, meaning employers can recruit directly from outside the UK without having to advertise in the UK first. Migrants on “skilled-employment” visas will also be able to stay for five years, and bring dependants with them. A system of new temporary visas will be created that are not tied to a single employer, enabling migrants to move between employers in precarious and flexible sectors of the labour market. At the same time, these temporary migrants will be prevented from renewing their status or continuing their employment even if they and their employers would prefer it. </p>
<p>What happens to these proposals as they are consulted on, translated into legislation, and then into guidance and Home Office practices will be key. </p>
<p>In UK immigration policy, the devil is always in the detail. Restrictions often become clear in the non-legislative detail of immigration paperwork and key questions must await those technical documents. How high will the health service fee be for migrants on temporary visas? What will the level of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/uk-visa-sponsorship-employers/immigration-skills-charge">“skills charge</a>” be to employers? What checks on prospective qualifications of employees will employers have to make in order to employ someone on a skilled visa?</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the policy outlined in the new white paper has three striking characteristics that shed light on its overall weaknesses. It is in turns, rather surreal, cynical and in places, potentially quite sinister.</p>
<h2>Problems with an earnings threshold</h2>
<p>There is much weight given within the white paper to the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/718237/EU_Settlement_Scheme_SOI_June_2018.pdf">settlement scheme</a> for EU citizens currently living in the UK that will be in place until the end of the Brexit “implementation period” in December 2020. Yet without parliament’s approval of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, which includes a reciprocal arrangement with the EU on the rights of citizens, the political basis for that scheme is void. That means the proposals in the white paper might be dead by March if there is a no-deal Brexit – at least as far as EU citizens are concerned.</p>
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<a href="http://theconversation.com/brexit-draft-withdrawal-agreement-experts-react-107027">Brexit draft withdrawal agreement – experts react</a>
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<p>Much is made in the white paper of the “skills” basis for the new immigration system. Yet the skilled employment route has two problems. First, it’s likely such a route will be tied to an earnings threshold. The government will consult on a proposal, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-advisory-committee-mac-report-eea-migration">made by the independent Migration Advisory Committee</a> (MAC) in September, to set that threshold at £30,000 a year, just above median earnings. This is politically contentious as there are many skilled workers who earn well below this. Second, it treats “skilled employment” as if this is an objectively measurable attribute – it isn’t. </p>
<p>The policy proposals are also pretty cynical. The MAC report found <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-eu-migration-has-done-for-the-uk-103461">little evidence</a> of large effects of migration on employment and wages. Yet it explicitly made reference to such pressures when it proposed keeping the £30,000 per year earnings threshold for skilled employment, arguing that such a high level might encourage employers to pay their skilled workers – librarians, care workers, physiotherapists, teachers – more. For the same reason, it opposed lowering the income threshold for public sector workers, on the grounds that upward pressure on their wages would be a good thing. </p>
<p>Yet, under current public expenditure levels, skilled public sector workers will not have wage increases to match these requirements. In the face of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/02/cbi-warns-low-skill-visa-cap-carolyn-fairbairn">employer complaints</a>, the government has explicitly invited employers to discuss the rate at which the threshold will be set in a year-long consultation. It’s likely the threshold will go down, directly undermining the MAC’s rationale for having it at all, and continuing to endorse the UK’s low-wage economy. Meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/genderpaygapintheuk/2018">gender pay gap</a>, and the differential treatment of skills in typically male and female employment, means that women migrants are less likely to meet whichever threshold is set. </p>
<h2>Selecting ‘immigrants’</h2>
<p>One of the rather understated, but politically telling, elements of the Home Office’s plans is that they permit two possible divergences from the new employment visa regimes they are proposing. First, new trade agreements after Brexit may open new routes for migrants from preferred countries and the UK will <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-special-migration-rules-in-free-trade-deals-work-103709">trade access to its labour market</a> for those willing to do a deal. Yet it’s unclear how this constitutes “taking back control”, being open, or having a skills-led immigration policy.</p>
<p>The second, is that immigration policy may diverge in future if more immigration routes are closed on the basis of “risk”. “Low-risk nationalities” and “low-risk countries” will have access to the UK. Migrants – however skilled – that do not conform to this “risk” assessment are always vulnerable to exclusion. “Risks” can be defined in many ways and give governments wide powers to select which countries the skilled migrants may come from. And the government is specifically proposing to automate such assessments. This opens the possibility for a return to the outright discriminatory and racist immigration policy of the past. </p>
<p>Overall, the timing of the white paper’s publication is surreal, it presents proposals that rather cynically reproduce existing inequalities in the UK’s precarious labour market and its casts a rather sinister light on how the government thinks about selecting “immigrants” after Brexit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109094/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Carmel received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and European Union for a research project, TRANSWEL, completed in July 2018.</span></em></p>The British government's immigration plans may be long-awaited, but they have not come at a good time.Emma Carmel, Senior Lecturer, Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1073032018-11-20T16:14:15Z2018-11-20T16:14:15ZTheresa May's dog-whistle rhetoric on EU citizens jumping the queue – and its effect on my four-year-old<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246456/original/file-20181120-161624-1vrrvh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-kids-elementary-school-739694965?src=coJjA0d3-K7RTHdnk6iGPw-1-89">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Daddy, have we jumped the queue?” She looked at me with her big inquisitive eyes, a little confused and worried. Matilda is four and in reception class. She’s learning a lot of fascinating things at the moment, about planets, robots, rockets and space exploration. </p>
<p>She’s also learning about how we share with others and behave in class. One of the things drummed into her very early on at school was that you don’t jump the queue. You must wait for your turn when it comes to speaking in circle time or being served food. </p>
<p>“Daddy, have we done something wrong?” she added. </p>
<p>After a moment of puzzlement, I joined the dots. The <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46257168">speech</a> Theresa May gave to business group the CBI, in which she said that a new post-Brexit immigration system would stop EU migrants from “jumping the queue” ahead of migrants from non-EU countries, had somehow reached her, probably not the prime minister’s target audience. </p>
<p>The impact of the CBI speech on her and hundreds of thousands of children in <a href="https://eurochildren.info/2018/07/24/mapping-eu-citizens-in-the-uk-a-changing-profile/">families with at least one parent born in a EU member state</a> other than the UK is collateral damage in May’s desperate attempt to woo the anti-immigration lobby as she tries to get her Brexit deal through the parliament.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://eurochildren.info/">the research</a> carried out by my colleagues and I is showing, families with non-UK EU citizens feel anxious, devalued and disempowered by the Brexit negotiation process. They are struggling to shield their children from the negative trickle down effects of the protracted uncertainty on their legal status in Britain (a sentiment shared by <a href="https://brexitbritsabroad.com/">British nationals</a> living in continental Europe). </p>
<h2>Powerlessness</h2>
<p>May’s speech was aimed for the small group of eurosceptic Conservative MPs led by Jacob Rees-Mogg and <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/07/jeremy-corbyn-wholesale-eu-immigration-has-destroyed-conditions-british">a powerful minority of Labour MPs</a> (some on the frontbench) who like to believe EU workers have “stolen British jobs” and undercut wages. A <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/741926/Final_EEA_report.PDF">recent report</a> from the Migration Advisory Committee found, on the contrary, that EU migration has had a positive impact on many aspects of society. </p>
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<p>It matters little to May, especially right now, that to over 3.5m EU nationals living in the UK and to Britons living on the continent, her words about jumping the queue were yet another reminder of how powerless they feel. Their lives are being played with like a football by teams they have not been allowed to join, since they were prevented from voting in the EU referendum.</p>
<p>Evidence from multiple <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/uk-public-opinion-toward-immigration-overall-attitudes-and-level-of-concern/">public attitude surveys</a> show that anti-immigration sentiment among the British public peaked around the time of the referendum in June 2016 and played a major role in the referendum outcome. “Take back control” resonated incredibly well with an electorate who had experienced decades of EU-bashing and scapegoating. This message was especially effective when teamed up with immigration, with voters promised that leaving the EU would allow them to <a href="http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_immigration.html">regain control of immigration</a> and borders. </p>
<p>In the run up to the referendum, day in, day out parts of the media warned their readers that the country was experiencing an invasion by an army of Europeans. Evidently the strategy worked. </p>
<h2>Immigration back on the table</h2>
<p>Since the referendum, surveys show that immigration has become slowly but steadily less of an issue for the <a href="http://ukandeu.ac.uk/how-have-attitudes-to-immigration-changed-since-brexit/">British public</a>. Some have argued that the outcome of the referendum has satisfied the demand for tougher immigration control in the voters. Others have noticed that after the referendum newspapers seem to have lost interest in the alleged migrant invasion, with the number of immigration-themed front pages decreasing steadily. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/daily-mail-new-editor-and-new-enemies-of-the-people-107202">change at the helm</a> of The Daily Mail is likely to have played a role here. Calls for moderation following a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38976087">spike in hate crimes</a> in the months after referendum also contributed to this reversal in media coverage of migration – but probably to a lesser extent than the idea that with the victory in the referendum, the “job is done”.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/nando-sigona/amber-rudd-windrush-scandal-and-reluctant-remainer">Windrush scandal</a> that emerged in spring 2018 also shone a spotlight on the damage of parts of the UK’s immigration strategy. May, who created the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">“hostile environment”</a> for immigration during her tenure as home secretary, initially struggled to distance herself from the scandal that, at least momentarily, contributed to a change of national mood on immigration. The more conciliatory rhetoric embraced by the new Home Secretary Sajid Javid helped her administration to overcome the political fallout of the Windrush scandal. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/compliant-environment-turning-ordinary-people-into-border-guards-should-concern-everyone-in-the-uk-107066">'Compliant environment': turning ordinary people into border guards should concern everyone in the UK</a>
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<p>But with a full-blown <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-draft-deal-agreed-by-british-cabinet-but-parliaments-approval-remains-unlikely-106944">rebellion against her Brexit deal</a> gaining pace among both hard Brexiters and those campaigning for a second referendum, May has decided that focusing on immigration is what’s necessary to regain support within her party and with her voters. </p>
<p>“We haven’t jumped any queue. There wasn’t one when I came here 18 years ago,” I replied to my daughter. She seemed persuaded but then added: “Why is she saying it then?”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107303/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nando Sigona receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council as part of The UK in a Changing Europe programme. </span></em></p>How a child reacted to Theresa May's comments that Brexit would stop EU citizens from 'jumping the queue' to come to the UK.Nando Sigona, Reader in International Migration and Forced Displacement and Deputy Director of the Institute for Research into Superdiversity, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1025212018-09-04T11:28:05Z2018-09-04T11:28:05ZIt's too early to talk of a 'Brexodus' – doing so ignores how many EU migrants have made Britain their home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234771/original/file-20180904-45143-6p8q3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Big decisions. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/380564566?src=YpOVNK8acEEjjYz425DuHw-1-2&amp;size=medium_jpg">Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the deadline for a final Brexit deal approaches, close attention is being paid to statistics on the number of EU citizens living in Britain. In late August, after the Office for National Statistics published its latest <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/datasets/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreportprovisionallongterminternationalmigrationltimestimates">long-term international migration estimates</a>, news <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/23/net-migration-from-eu-to-uk-at-lowest-level-since-december-2012?CMP=share_btn_link">reports</a> continued to talk of a “Brexodus” – the exodus of EU citizens from the UK ahead of Brexit. But such commentary, which is mirrored in <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexodus-of-eu-citizens-from-the-uk-is-picking-up-speed-92089">academic debate</a>, is overblown and it’s symptomatic of the assumptions made about how mobile the EU migrants who’ve made their homes in Britain actually are.</p>
<p>Brexit has provoked high levels of uncertainty about the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-social-policy/article/conditioning-familylife-at-the-intersection-of-migration-and-welfare-the-implications-for-brexit-families/C0CF897BC9AB22FE6A7D115322B71B47#fndtn-information">future rights of EU citizens and their families</a>. While the draft <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/status-of-eu-nationals-in-the-uk-what-you-need-to-know#history">Withdrawal Agreement</a> between the UK and the European Commission may have allayed some of those fears, the first batch of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/how-to-prepare-if-the-uk-leaves-the-eu-with-no-deal">government’s “no-deal Brexit” papers</a> was silent on whether this agreement, and the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families">Settlement Scheme</a> that implements it, would still stand in the event of no deal. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/eu-citizens-what-settled-status-after-brexit-really-means-a-legal-expert-explains-97810">EU citizens: what settled status after Brexit really means – a legal expert explains</a>
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<p>Meanwhile, a recent inquiry <a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/wp-content/uploads/understanding-the-difference-the-initial-police-response-to-hate-crime.pdf">predicted</a> that reported hate crimes against migrants, which <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/652136/hate-crime-1617-hosb1717.pdf">increased</a> at the time of the referendum, could spike again around the point of the UK’s exit from the EU in March 2019.</p>
<p>The narrative of “Brexodus”, however, is far from accurate in capturing how EU citizen migrants are responding to this situation. As the latest estimates indicate, EU net migration – the number of people leaving subtracted from the number arriving – has fallen. At 87,000 it is now at its lowest level since 2012, and far below its peak of 189,000 in the year ending June 2016. But, the decline in the number of EU citizens arriving in the UK accounts for more of the fall in net migration than does a rise in the number leaving. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=376&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=376&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=376&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=473&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=473&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234643/original/file-20180903-41726-1har8ba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=473&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">UK net migration by citizenship from year ending June 2008 to year ending March 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/august2018#migration-patterns-for-eu-and-non-eu-citizens">Long-Term International Migration, Office for National Statistics</a></span>
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<p>The number of EU citizens leaving the UK in the year ending March 2018 was 138,000. According to the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/datasets/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreportprovisionallongterminternationalmigrationltimestimates">ONS</a> this number has: “Remained stable following a previous increase between the years ending September 2015 and September 2017.” So, we are not seeing a pattern of departures implied by the narrative of “Brexodus”. </p>
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<p>Outflows are also very different depending on which countries EU citizens come from. Between the year ending March 2017 and that ending March 2018, there was a 21% increase in the number of departures among EU15 nationals – referring to the <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=6805">15 member states</a> of the EU until enlargement in 2004 – and a 19% increase in the number of departures of EU2 nationals, from Romania and Bulgaria. However, the increase in the number of departures of citizens from EU8 countries – those countries including Poland and Hungary which joined in 2004 – was significantly lower, at 4%. </p>
<p>EU citizen migrants are also <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2018-data-tables">applying for UK citizenship</a> in increasing numbers: with over 11,000 applications in each of the first two quarters of 2018. This is the highest on record and around 2,000 more than in the respective periods in 2017.</p>
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<p>The “Brexodus” narrative doesn’t capture these nuances and complexity because it is based on an inaccurate construction of migration under EU freedom of movement as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24371603?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">“super mobile”</a>. The assumption is that when circumstances change, people move on. The same assumption informs the UK government’s construction of EU migrants – as with migrants in general – as mobile and disposable, and the “Brexodus” narrative simply reinforces this.</p>
<h2>Left to feel like ‘a floating log’</h2>
<p>Our research is indicating, however, that there is a dissonance between migrants’ experiences and the assumptions being built into migration policy. EU migrants in the UK are rarely continually mobile, and despite the unsettling force Brexit presents to their personal and family biographies, <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/05/22/eu-citizens-in-the-uk-after-the-shock-comes-the-strategy-to-secure-status/">moving on is not necessarily an option</a>. </p>
<p>Brexit is clearly a potentially destabilising force in the lives of the 3m or so EU citizens resident in the UK. This was clear from a public <a href="https://discoversociety.org/2017/12/15/not-one-of-you-any-longer-eu-nationals-brexit-uncertainty-and-mistrust/">Q&amp;A event</a> attended by 70 people in Sheffield on Brexit and the rights of EU nationals, which we helped organise in November 2017. Of those attending, 37 people from 14 different countries contributed written responses to the question: “What is your main concern for EU nationals in the UK after Brexit?”</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/what-the-eus-rules-on-free-movement-allow-all-its-citizens-to-do-62186">What the EU's rules on free movement allow all its citizens to do</a>
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<p>One participant from Germany wrote: “Moving back to one’s home country is by no means straightforward due to housing issues, finding qualified work, getting into health insurance, transfer savings without double taxation.” While another participant, also from Germany wrote: “The UK makes me feel like a visitor but I have been here so long that the country of my origin is strange to me.”</p>
<p>For many, the Brexit process has provoked a deep sense of insecurity. As one person wrote: “It feels like being a floating log in the middle of the ocean.”</p>
<p>A more sophisticated way to understand how Brexit is influencing the decision-making of EU citizen migrants is needed than simply labelling it a “Brexodus”. Such an approach needs to acknowledge that decisions are shaped by inter-connected economic, political and personal considerations. Family relationships and <a href="https://theconversation.com/polish-grandparents-face-uncertain-family-future-after-brexit-80993">responsibilities</a> across the life course also influence migration or settling strategies. So it’s key that analysis of migration trends in the months and years to come go beyond the numbers to examine the multilayered processes and considerations likely to inform migrants’ decisions to move or stay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102521/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Majella Kilkey receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, the European Commission and the Noble Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Ryan receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p>What migration figures really tell us about the movement of people.Majella Kilkey, Reader in Social Policy, University of SheffieldLouise Ryan, Professor of Sociology, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/999552018-07-16T10:58:33Z2018-07-16T10:58:33ZYouth mobility scheme after Brexit won't fill gaps left by end to free movement<p>Despite publishing a <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/724982/The_future_relationship_between_the_United_Kingdom_and_the_European_Union_WEB_VERSION.pdf">white paper</a> on its future relationship with the EU, there is still no clear UK government policy on what will replace the free movement of people after Brexit. The white paper suggests a new “mobility framework” but this seems to be little more than a buzzword with little substance behind it. </p>
<p>These details will be the job for a separate white paper and an immigration bill, which the government says “will bring EU migration under UK law, enabling the UK to set out its future immigration system in domestic legislation”. This will probably come later in 2018, following recommendations from the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/migration-advisory-committee">Migration Advisory Committee</a>, due in September.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/britains-brexit-plan-revealed-experts-react-99862">Britain's Brexit plan revealed: experts react</a>
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<p>Much of the white paper section on immigration proposes that the rights of citizens from the European Economic Area (EEA) who come to the UK once free movement stops at the end of the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43456502">Brexit transition period in December 2020</a> will be similar to those currently held by non-EEA citizens. While the white paper doesn’t give away much on the UK’s future immigration system, it contains a novel proposal to establish a “UK-EU Youth Mobility Scheme”. </p>
<h2>Youth mobility</h2>
<p>The current UK immigration system is <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=6&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiBoc-5naPcAhWMalAKHUAlCWIQFgh6MAU&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fresearchbriefings.files.parliament.uk%2Fdocuments%2FCBP-7662%2FCBP-7662.pdf&amp;usg=AOvVaw0pebTu3qaGFpu8SFADIKtj">points-based</a> and divided into tiers for different types of visa. Tier 5 is for temporary migration – and the white paper proposes to extend it after Brexit. </p>
<p>The UK currently has a reciprocal <a href="https://www.gov.uk/tier-5-youth-mobility">Youth Mobility Scheme</a> (YMS) under Tier 5 with eight countries on a quota basis, with the majority of visas being allocated to Australians. The YMS visa allows young migrants, aged between 18 and 30, to work in the UK without a job offer, with no certification or employer sponsor requirements for up two years. There were <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-july-to-september-2017/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-2-to-work">41,652 youth mobility visas</a> granted in the year to September 2017, down 1% on the previous year. It’s a very liberal but nonetheless strictly temporary visa with no settlement or <a href="https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/family-residence-rights/index_en.htm">family reunification rights</a>. Because there are no employer sponsorship requirements, very little is known about the labour market activity of these migrants. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.temperproject.eu/research-areas/">Research</a> I’ve been working on has found that young Australians on the YMS are the ideal migrant for both the state and employers alike as they take on precarious but skilled jobs in the UK labour market, without the electoral costs of permanent migration. The public is more concerned about permanent than temporary immigration, and according to research from the University of Oxford’s <a href="http://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Report-Public_Opinion.pdf">Migration Observatory</a> less than a third of the public reports thinking about temporary immigrants when normally thinking about immigration.</p>
<p>The government is now proposing an EU-UK youth mobility scheme that would facilitate young, strictly temporary migration between the UK and the EU in the same way. Presumably it would also be based on quotas. How these visas would be allocated between member states will be a crucial detail, given that in <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/725288/The_future_relationship_between_the_United_Kingdom_and_the_European_Union.pdf">clause 78</a> of the white paper, the UK says it will not discriminate between existing member states. </p>
<p>This is perhaps the only proposal so far that addresses the elephant in the room: how the government can continue to attract EU workers to come to the UK after Brexit. But whether the proposal will provide any remedy to the looming labour market crisis following the end of free movement really depends on how big the scheme is. In any case, with no settlement or family reunification rights, a new YMS system for EU citizens is certainly not a replacement for free movement. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227608/original/file-20180713-27012-1h0b0uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227608/original/file-20180713-27012-1h0b0uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227608/original/file-20180713-27012-1h0b0uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227608/original/file-20180713-27012-1h0b0uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227608/original/file-20180713-27012-1h0b0uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227608/original/file-20180713-27012-1h0b0uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227608/original/file-20180713-27012-1h0b0uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Would you like a Tier 5 visa with that?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/726805228?src=HrJb5WLDvZVs08yuhmPWVQ-1-1&amp;size=medium_jpg">via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<h2>Seasonal workers and students</h2>
<p>Previously, the UK had a successful <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12134-018-0577-x">Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme</a> which allowed young people to work in UK agriculture or horticulture for a temporary seasonal period. Curiously absent from the white paper was any proposal to re-establish such a scheme – a move which seemed likely in light recent <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43127524">comments</a> by Michael Gove, the environment secretary, earlier this year, that the argument for one was “compelling”. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the mantra introduced by the New Labour administrations of attracting the “brightest and best students” remains. Data from the UK Council for International Student affairs <a href="https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/Research--Policy/Statistics/International-student-statistics-UK-higher-education">suggest that 6%</a> of students in UK universities are from the EU. Presumably EU students will now face the same triple tuition fees at UK universities as other non-EEA students pay in the UK. Whether the UK will continue to attract these students despite this remains an unknown. Judging by the white paper, the government doesn’t appear to be concerned that the higher fees will deter these prospective students – though it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/02/government-guarantees-eu-students-fee-and-loan-rates-past-brexit">has promised</a> to keep fees the same for EU students for the 2019-20 academic year. A key proposal is for the UK to remain in the <a href="https://www.erasmusplus.org.uk/brexit-update">Erasmus student exchange</a> programme – surely something the EU won’t accept given that Erasmus is by definition an EU student exchange programme. </p>
<p>Overall, it seems unlikely that the EU will accept the white paper, and judging by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-much-trouble-is-theresa-may-in-heres-the-evidence-99783">factionalism within the Conservative party</a>, it might well be dead by the end of the summer anyway. </p>
<p>Ending free movement has been the driving force for a hard Brexit. While May could yet water down elements of the agreement to give more preference to EU citizens, free movement is definitively a red line for the UK government and the EU alike, a fact that the prime minister knows. The government may want to have their cake and eat it too, but the EU bakery isn’t selling the cake they want, and won’t be anytime soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99955/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erica Consterdine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In its Brexit white paper, the UK government proposed a new UK-EU youth mobility scheme. But the details remain vague.Erica Consterdine, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Immigration Politics and Policy, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/978102018-06-22T13:02:38Z2018-06-22T13:02:38ZEU citizens: what settled status after Brexit really means – a legal expert explains<p>The process for approximately 3.5m EU citizens currently living in the UK to apply for a new “settled status” after Brexit has now become clearer, after the Home Office <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/718237/EU_Settlement_Scheme_SOI_June_2018.pdf">published details</a> of the scheme. But there are still some issues that EU citizens will need to watch out for. </p>
<p>There are four steps to a successful settlement scheme application:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A digital application form </p></li>
<li><p>Fee of £65, or £32.50 for children</p></li>
<li><p>Proof of identity/nationality</p></li>
<li><p>A photo</p></li>
</ol>
<p>There are a further <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44553225">three “simple” requirements</a> to satisfy the settlement scheme: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Proof of identity</p></li>
<li><p>Proof of eligibility</p></li>
<li><p>Proof of suitability</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Eligibility looks at whether the EU citizen is a resident in the UK, or if they are actually a family member of an EU citizen. Suitability is a criminal background check to ensure the individual is not a threat to public security.</p>
<h2>Settled and pre-settled status</h2>
<p>The official date of withdrawal – March 29, 2019 – is not the deadline for accruing the five years needed for permanent residency. Instead, if EU citizens and their families have been continuously resident in the UK for five years by December 31, 2020 – the end of the Brexit implementation period – then they will be able to apply for settled status. This is equivalent to permanent residency. </p>
<p>Pre-settled status is for EU citizens and family who have not lived in the UK for five years on December 31, 2020. They can continue to live in Britain until they reach the five years, then apply to change their pre-settled to settled status for no fee. They do still need to apply for pre-settled status in order to be eligible for settled status.</p>
<p>Both schemes include EU citizens’ family members, including family members who join EU citizens in the UK before the end of 2020. They also cover family who join after that date, if the EU citizen that the family member is joining was already resident in the UK, and they had a relationship before this date which continues. Both schemes also cover future children of those with settled or pre-settled status.</p>
<p>Once a person gets settled status, they can be away from the UK for a total of five consecutive years. After this, the status will lapse, so it’s something that needs to be maintained.</p>
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<p>The deadline set by the Home Office for all these applications to be made is June 30, 2021, six months after the end of the implementation period. The home secretary, Sajid Javid, <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/718237/EU_Settlement_Scheme_SOI_June_2018.pdf">promised</a> that “EU citizens and their family members do not need to do anything immediately” because their rights do not change until the end of 2020.</p>
<p>However, those EU citizens who currently have permanent residency or indefinite leave to remain (ILR) are in slightly better positions. They will still have to follow the administrative procedures, but they do not have to pay a fee to exchange their current permanent residency or ILR for settled status. EU citizens who will have been in the country for five years by December 31, 2020 are also in a slightly better position. They automatically avoid the bureaucracy of having to apply twice – once for pre-settled, then again for settled status. </p>
<h2>Possible teething problems</h2>
<p>Before the Home Office published details of the scheme, concerns had already been <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-eu-citizens-at-risk-of-failing-to-secure-settled-status-after-brexit-94947">expressed over people</a> who may be at risk of failing to secure the new status, including how to address “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-brexit-deal-means-for-eu-citizens-and-their-families-88901">grey areas</a>” which often involve the residency status of non-economically active citizens. </p>
<p>The government has also been criticised because the app designed for the settled status application process <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/04/24/app-eu-citizens-get-uk-residency-brexit-wont-work-apple-phones/">does not currently work on Apple devices</a>.</p>
<p>In my <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2958113">research</a> on protection of the right to private and family life of EU citizens in the UK post-Brexit, I note some gaps in the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/691366/20180319_DRAFT_WITHDRAWAL_AGREEMENT.pdf">Draft Withdrawal Agreement</a> between the UK and EU, published in March 2018. The new document from the Home Office does add some helpful details, especially on how exactly settlement will work. </p>
<p>It resolves the issue of people known as “<a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/surinder-singh-immigration-route/">Surinder Singh</a>” returners: EU nationals and their families who initially left their home member state to exercise their rights to free movement under EU law, and later want to return home. <a href="http://www.jcwi.org.uk/blog/2013/04/19/surinder-singh-and-family-unity">Singh</a> was an Indian national, married to a British national, who lived in Germany. When he moved back to the UK with his wife, the marriage subsequently broke down and he was threatened with deportation but won his case. Such people have now also been guaranteed rights after Brexit. This means if that a non-EU citizen married to a Briton, currently living elsewhere in the EU, were to return to the UK within the scheme’s time limitation, that non-EU citizen would also qualify for settlement.</p>
<p>Still, there are a number of other issues that still haven’t been addressed. The status of people known as “<a href="http://www.nrpfnetwork.org.uk/Documents/Zambrano-Factsheet.pdf">Zambrano</a>” carers – a non-EU citizen who is the primary carer of an EU citizen – is yet to be determined. This includes non-EU parents of EU citizens. Zambrano was a Colombian national with two children who attained Belgian nationality because they were born in Belgium. He was eventually granted residency on the basis that without his care, the children – who were EU citizens – would not be able to remain in the EU. </p>
<p>Another troubling part of the settlement scheme is its provisions on criminality checks. They do not currently comply with EU <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/legal_service/arrets/09c145_en.pdf">case law</a> applying <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:EN:PDF">Article 28, Directive 2004/38</a> which protects EU citizens against expulsion. The Court of Justice of the EU states that having a criminal background should not automatically mean someone is a threat to public security – one of the ways deportation can be justified.</p>
<p>Protection from deportation is another missing piece of the puzzle. The Home Office settlement document sets out plans to allow deportation under EU law before the implementation period expires, and for deportation subject to the UK’s Immigration Rules after that. In the past, the UK has <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uk-can-no-longer-remove-eu-citizens-for-sleeping-rough-why-this-matters-for-brexit-89463">not been shy</a> about breaching EU rules on deportations. After the implementation period, it could get worse for EU citizens, as section 32 of the UK Borders Act 2007 will apply to them. This states that subject to some <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-part-13-deportation">exceptions</a>, a foreign criminal can be automatically deported. What this means is that despite having settled status, EU citizens could still be deported.</p>
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<p>There are also questions about the “three simple requirements” for settlement, and how applicants can prove this. Eligibility relies on data taken from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). This places emphasis on workers, and could make the process more difficult for non-workers, such as the elderly or disabled individuals. Any data held by the HMRC or DWP on these non-workers are more likely to be records of their benefit claims, if any. Given the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30002138">UK’s stance towards benefit tourism</a> in the past, it’s unclear whether this could have an impact on proving eligibility under the settlement process.</p>
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<p>While it is commendable that the UK has made some way towards fulfilling its promise of guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens in the UK after Brexit, it appears there are still some people they are unhappy to keep in their territory after Brexit. It’s unclear what would happen to those who miss the deadline. As these are not minor risks, it’s something Javid and the Home Office should keep thinking about.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97810/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrienne Yong has consulted for The3Million campaign group. She receives funding from City Pump Priming Scheme on a research project about the post-Brexit effect on the right to private and family life of EU citizens in the UK.</span></em></p>Details have been published of how EU citizens in the UK can apply for 'settled status' after Brexit. But it may have some teething problems.Adrienne Yong, Lecturer at The City Law School, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/961642018-05-15T10:49:14Z2018-05-15T10:49:14ZAfter Brexit, Norwegians face dilemma over future of 'Norway model' with the EU<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218967/original/file-20180515-122906-154641o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Follow our lead. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the UK searches for a new kind of relationship with the European Union after Brexit, comparisons continue to be made with Norway to see whether it could act as a useful model. MPs will now <a href="https://euobserver.com/news/141777">get to vote</a> on whether to follow the “Norway model” and remain in the European Economic Area (EEA) post-Brexit, after the House of Lords passed an amendment on the issue in early May. </p>
<p>Norway has sought as close an affiliation as possible to the EU without becoming an EU member. As <a href="https://policypress.co.uk/squaring-the-circle-on-brexit">our new research has chronicled</a>, the “Norway model” consists of around 120 agreements, with the EEA agreement as the <a href="http://www.nomos-shop.de/_assets/downloads/9783848732197_lese01.pdf">centerpiece</a>. The EU membership issue was blocked in two referenda in 1972 and 1994, and is still blocked by a substantial popular majority against EU membership. </p>
<p>Opinion polls in the country <a href="https://e24.no/makro-og-politikk/eoes-avtalen/fortsatt-flertall-for-eoes/24197666">show</a> that Norway’s current EU affiliation still has broad popular support, and that there is no significant change in overall popular sentiment since the UK voted to leave the EU. But with much more uncertainty about the future, there is a risk that sentiments could become more volatile. </p>
<p>Norway’s political parties are divided on the issue of EU membership, but the country has a proportional electoral system that essentially compels parties to form ruling coalitions. This means every governing coalition usually includes a eurosceptic party that will either want to abolish or renegotiate the EEA agreement – and it results in the inclusion of a provision in any coalition agreement bent on <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-review/article/norways-european-gag-rules/620571406FE86C7C73103B0E75531B59">retaining the status quo</a> of close EU affiliation without EU membership. </p>
<p>The effect has been to effectively depoliticise Norway’s relationship with the EU.</p>
<h2>What Brexit means for Norway</h2>
<p>Since the UK’s vote to leave the EU in June 2016, questions have emerged on what the consequences might be for Norway if the UK ends up in the EEA, if there is no deal, or if the UK gets a better deal with the EU than the one Norway has currently. </p>
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À lire aussi :
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<p>In an effort to contain potential conflict, the Norwegian government is committed to retain the EEA agreement and Norway’s other EU affiliations. But the bonds between Norway and the UK are strong, and if a conflict were to ensue between the EU and the UK Norway would have to make hard choices. </p>
<p>Norway is in a more precarious position than EU member states. It’s not involved in the Brexit negotiations and so is a decision-taker. It has very limited ability to influence what the EU and UK decide between themselves, and it cannot automatically assume that any future agreements that the EU strikes with the UK will apply to it. The fact that Norway is not involved in the negotiations means that it must basically sort out its relationship to the UK once the terms of the divorce have been settled. </p>
<p>One example regards the rights of Norwegians living in the UK after Brexit. They are currently subject to the same free movement rights as EU citizens in the UK, but the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/draft_agreement_coloured.pdf">draft EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement</a> does not include provision for Norwegian citizens. The UK government has, however, <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-eu-citizens-offer-extended-to-norway-iceland-and-liechtenstein/">promised</a> that the terms of the agreement will include Norway and the other EEA members, Iceland and Lichtenstein. </p>
<p>Some politicians, notably from one of the opposition parties, the Centre Party, which has a strong rural base and has always opposed the EEA Agreement, have seen Brexit as a window of opportunity to abolish the agreement. Meanwhile, the Norwegian Progress party, a right-wing populist party and member of the minority ruling coalition, is committed to it. However, its leaders do want to renegotiate parts of the deal and the Schengen free movement arrangements in order to protect Norwegian sovereignty, prevent export of welfare benefits and strengthen immigration controls. </p>
<p>The main employers’ association is very concerned with the need for maintaining Norway’s current EU affiliations. But the country’s trade unions are divided: while most of the leadership supports the current arrangement, some of the branch organisations oppose it or want to renegotiate it. </p>
<p>One issue that recently sparked great controversy in Norway is whether Norway should join the EU’s <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/markets-and-consumers/market-legislation">Third Energy Package</a>, which governs the bloc’s energy market. It would make the Norwegian regulator directly subject to the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators. This raises constitutional issues in Norway since the EEA arrangement does not provide for administrative agencies at the EU level to make decisions that are binding in Norwegian law. Nevertheless, despite strong opposition from many MPs, in late March the parliament <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-eu-energy/norway-adopts-eu-energy-rules-averting-break-with-bloc-idUSKBN1GY2OY">voted to approve it</a>. </p>
<h2>Lessons for Britain from the ‘Norway model’</h2>
<p>Norway now faces several dilemmas. The fewer changes there are to the UK’s present relationship to the EU, the fewer problems there will be for Norway. At the same time, the more closely affiliated the UK becomes to Norway once it leaves the EU, the more likely it is that the UK will politicise and alter Norway’s current EU affiliation. </p>
<p>Another dilemma that Brexit raises is a wider question about what role Norway should play in what kind of Europe. The government is afraid to open this debate because it fears undermining the present arrangement. But continuing to shirk the issue could also cause questions of legitimacy.</p>
<p>Norway’s experience shows that retaining access to the EU single market is complicated but possible. A major force that keeps Norway in line, is that once a deal with the EU is struck – whether the EEA or the Schengen deal for example – it is an “all or nothing” solution. Refusal to take on board new legislation – such as the energy package – could unravel whole areas of co-operation. </p>
<p>There is political will from both the EU and the Norwegians to maintain close relations, something which allows for a certain measure of flexibility. The traditional Norwegian political climate of consensus also contributes to maintaining the status quo by keeping most controversial issues outside the scope of active politics. Since every coalition government has an agreement on leaving the EU membership issue aside, the broader constitutional and democratic questions about the cumulative impact of Norway’s current EU affiliation are not really addressed. </p>
<p>But the UK’s political system is far more confrontational. The EU issue has sparked profound controversy and in contrast to Norway, even rather mundane issues may be politicised and linked to matters of high principle. Under such circumstances political leadership is very difficult because leaders have limited ability to regulate the level of conflict and how the issues link in with each other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96164/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d&#39;une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n&#39;ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur poste universitaire.</span></em></p>Norway's relationship with the EU is carefully managed – what lessons does it have for Britain after Brexit?John Erik Fossum, Professor, ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of OsloHans Petter Graver, Professor, Department of Private Law, University of OsloLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/949472018-04-13T11:35:40Z2018-04-13T11:35:40ZThe EU citizens at risk of failing to secure 'settled status' after Brexit<p>The government has committed to ensuring that all EU citizens living in the UK will still have the right to do so after Brexit. Our latest <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/reports/unsettled-status-which-eu-citizens-are-at-risk-of-failing-to-secure-their-rights-after-brexit/">research</a> from the Migration Observatory says that in practice, it won’t be that easy. </p>
<p>Most of the 3.6m EU citizens and their family members should have no trouble navigating the simplified process that the government has proposed. The current, pre-Brexit, application process for permanent residence <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2119a554-fce6-11e6-96f8-3700c5664d30">has been much criticised</a> for its complexity – with an 85-page application form and obscure requirements such as private health cover for students, which many EU citizens didn’t realise they had to meet.</p>
<p>In response, the government is <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Report-Settled_Status.pdf">proposing something</a> much simpler. The fiddly criteria that contributed to high rejections of EU permanent residence applications in the past are expected to be dropped, and people will simply need to have been resident in the UK to qualify. The new process will be simple and easy and most applicants will be able to rely on information the government already holds about them – such as tax records – rather than having to track down the paperwork themselves. EU citizens living in the UK are on average a highly educated population who should not have trouble getting this done.</p>
<p>Still, our report report identifies groups of people who could nonetheless be at risk of not securing “settled status” despite the proposed simplified system. </p>
<h2>Awareness and access</h2>
<p>A potentially significant number of people may not be aware that they can and need to apply. This includes, for example, children – particularly those whose parents do not themselves apply, do not realise that children need to apply, or mistakenly believe that their UK-born children are automatically UK citizens. There are over 700,000 EU national children currently living in the UK. In addition, people who have been in the UK for decades – our <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Report-Settled_Status.pdf">analysis</a> suggests there are 146,000 non-Irish EU citizens who arrived at least 30 years ago – may not realise that they too are affected.</p>
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<p>Some people may also believe they are ineligible or fear being rejected. This could include people previously rejected for permanent residence under the existing, more restrictive system, or people with minor criminal convictions or cautions.</p>
<p>Applications may be more difficult where people are already vulnerable or have reduced autonomy for some reason. For example, victims of domestic abuse, particularly if they rely on a partner for evidence, could struggle to complete the process. An <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/crimeinenglandandwalesyearendingmarch2017">estimated 50,000 EU citizen women</a> reported experiencing some form of abuse – either once or repeatedly – in the year ending March 2017. Other vulnerable groups include children in care and people with mental health problems. By their nature, such groups are difficult to quantify and the types and severity of the barriers they face will vary.</p>
<p>Some may need help completing an application, for example due to language barriers. In 2015, according to our analysis of the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/surveys/informationforhouseholdsandindividuals/householdandindividualsurveys/labourforcesurveylfs">Labour Force Survey</a>, around 250,000 non-Irish EU nationals reported language difficulties in keeping or finding work. Age and disability may also come into play – EU citizens are a relatively young population but an estimated 56,000 were age 75 or above in 2017. As may digital exclusion; in early 2017 an estimated 2% or 64,000 non-Irish EU citizens said that they had never used the internet.</p>
<h2>The right documents</h2>
<p>Some people could have difficulty demonstrating that they have been living in the UK. Most EU citizens won’t need to, as there will be tax or benefits records that the government already holds. The government has also said that for people without those records, it will expand the types of documents that can be provided. But a small core of people may have left very little paper trail. An estimated 3.4% of people age 18 and over in the UK don’t have bank accounts, according to <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Report-Settled_Status.pdf">data we requested</a> from the Office for National Statistics. This suggests that their lives are lived primarily in cash. If the share is the same for all citizenships, this would be equivalent to just over 90,000 non-Irish EU citizen adults.</p>
<p>Some people will not have basic identity documents proving who they are. At the time of the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/2011census">2011 Census</a>, 100,000 or 5% of EU-born residents of England and Wales said they didn’t hold a passport – though we don’t know what share of these people will have a national ID card, which would also be accepted.</p>
<p>Simply having one of the characteristics identified in our research does not mean that a person will fail to secure settled status. People are likely to face greater difficulties if there is a combination of factors. </p>
<p>Arguably the biggest challenge of all this, if the government aims for comprehensive take-up of settled status, is awareness about the need to apply. There are some large groups of people who would not normally be classified as “vulnerable” but who may not realise that they need to apply, from children to very long-term residents. There will also be people who simply forget or delay their application until after the deadline expires. </p>
<p>If a significant number don’t apply, enforcing a strict deadline would increase the illegally resident EU-national population in the UK. As a result, perhaps one of the most important unresolved policy questions is exactly what will happen for people who do not apply by the deadline.</p>
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<p><em>This article has also been published by <a href="http://ukandeu.ac.uk/">The UK in a Changing Europe</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine Sumption receives funding from the ESRC UK in a Changing Europe initiative, Trust for London, the Barrow Cadbury Trust, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.</span></em></p>All EU citizens living in the UK will need to register after Brexit. But some may find it difficult to do so.Madeleine Sumption, Director, Migration Observatory, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/929072018-03-07T13:38:36Z2018-03-07T13:38:36ZHomeless people could avoid life-saving services, if there's a risk of deportation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209102/original/file-20180306-146671-l76em6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-england-july-12-2016-poor-470033294?src=ghTHZBgGy0SKpkQSD-Jbrw-1-52">Elena Rostunova / Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the UK was hit by snow and freezing temperatures last week, more beds in shelters were made available, and people in England and Wales were advised to use the <a href="https://www.streetlink.org.uk">StreetLink</a> app and helpline to report rough sleepers. The project sets out to ensure that no one in a <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/2016-report/download">wealthy country</a> dies of cold because they have nowhere appropriate to sleep. </p>
<p>But this is overshadowed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/05/st-mungos-homeless-charity-helped-target-rough-sleepers-to-deport">by reports</a> of Home Office immigration, compliance and enforcement (ICE) teams seeking out rough sleepers without a recognised claim to be in the UK for detention and deportation, alongside homelessness charity outreach teams. This raises important issues about <a href="https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/should-immigrants-lose-their-human-rights/">the relationship between</a> border policies and the treatment of people who are already in the UK, and about access to basic human rights.</p>
<h2>A long history</h2>
<p>This story starts back in 2015, when the House of Commons <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/commons/2016-12-01/55899/">heard about</a> Operation Adoze – a pilot scheme by the Home Office to deport non-UK citizens from the European Economic Area (EEA) sleeping rough in London. Guidance notes clarifying <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/1052/pdfs/uksi_20161052_en.pdf">the regulations</a> on the administrative removal of non-UK-EEA-citizens drew concern from <a href="http://strategiclegalfund.org.uk/Jean%20Demars%20DPG%20rough%20sleeping.pdf">homelessness advocates and lawyers</a>, for identifying rough sleeping as an “<a href="https://www.homeless.org.uk/connect/blogs/2016/aug/23/rough-sleeping-and-home-office-removals">abuse</a>” (in May 2016) and later a “<a href="https://ukimmigrationjusticewatch.com/2017/03/04/the-new-2016-eea-regulations-fertile-ground-for-removal-expulsion-and-deportation-of-eea-nationals-and-their-family-members/">misuse</a>” (in February 2017) of the EU’s right to free movement.</p>
<p>Throughout 2016, a round-up of rough sleepers in London <a href="https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/news/blog/hostile-environment-homeless">is reported to have taken place</a> with the cooperation of outreach teams from homelessness charities, which <a href="https://corporatewatch.org/the-round-up-rough-sleeper-immigration-raids-and-charity-collaboration-2/">allegedly passed information</a> about non-UK-citizens who were sleeping rough to the Home Office, leading to detentions and deportations. During this time, charities’ data were also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/19/home-office-secret-emails-data-homeless-eu-nationals">reportedly being used</a> for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/07/charities-giving-home-office-details-of-rough-sleepers-says-report">Home Office mapping</a>. Similar stories have emerged as far afield as <a href="https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/council-won-government-funding-deport-548487">Bristol</a>, <a href="http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/15156606.Anger_over_charity_s____collusion____to_deport_homeless/">Brighton</a> and <a href="http://jomec.co.uk/thecardiffian/2017/03/07/european-rough-sleepers-cardiff-may-removed-uk/">Cardiff</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, in December 2017, the <a href="http://dpglaw.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Approved-judgment-RGureckis-v-SSHD-Ors.pdf">High Court ruled</a> that the round up and deportation of non-UK-EEA-citizen rough sleepers was unlawful, as rough sleeping was not an abuse or misuse of EU free movement. But this story is not only about EU free movement rights. It is about the relationship between the right to life-saving shelter, and migration enforcement. </p>
<h2>Desperate and destitute</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/beast-from-the-east-the-science-behind-europes-siberian-chill-92385">The snowfall</a> which recently covered parts of the UK served up a stark reminder that access to adequate housing is <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FS21_rev_1_Housing_en.pdf">a basic human right</a>, which can save lives. Now, more than ever, it is clear that access to adequate housing must be decoupled from migration enforcement, to move away from an environment in which destitution, administrative detention and deportation are contributing to a hostile environment for non-UK-citizens, without legal process. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/02/women-detained-yarl-wood-hunger-strike-180228195926024.html">hunger strikers</a> in Yarl’s Wood detention centre were <a href="https://detainedvoices.com/2018/03/03/letter-given-to-some-of-the-protesters/">recently informed</a> by the Home Office that they risk being <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/yarls-wood-home-office-women-deported-more-quickly-hunger-strike-a8239611.html">deported sooner</a> if they continued to protest. </p>
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<span class="caption">A detainee held at Yarl’s Wood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bedfordshire-uk-08-aug-2015-detainee-351707972?src=1UCVMdJwvzO6FD2SA_NJvg-1-0">Pete Maclaine / Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Some might argue that if Home Office officials can assess individuals’ cases, those with a genuine claim to remain in the country will be fine; only the nefarious will be removed. But even if things did work this way, it would raise two problems. It implies that the right to life is dependent on a person’s paperwork, and not their humanity. And it doesn’t make provision for those who are scared and unwilling to risk seeking help. </p>
<p>What’s more, as a result of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/10/asylum-seekers-forced-into-homelessness-support-applications">drawn-out</a> and unfair asylum decisions (a third <a href="http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01403/SN01403.pdf">are reversed</a> if they get to appeal), <a href="https://www.homeless.org.uk/connect/blogs/2018/jan/10/migrant-homelessness-stark-reality-of-destitution-in-england">administrative issues</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2001/jan/31/localgovernment.asylum">inappropriate housing</a>, migrants can <a href="https://www.homeless.org.uk/connect/blogs/2018/jan/10/migrant-homelessness-stark-reality-of-destitution-in-england">be left destitute</a> through their engagement with the Home Office. Ill-considered migration control measures could prevent the most vulnerable from seeking help, and <a href="https://www.crisis.org.uk/ending-homelessness/law-and-rights/immigration/">undermine the work</a> of organisations that have been serving rough sleepers for decades. It has been suggested that cooperating with the Home Office <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/10/charities-aid-deportations-rough-sleepers-migration">undermines the integrity</a> of those homelessness organisations, which try to give their service users a voice and a platform to challenge government policies. </p>
<h2>Out of sight, out of mind?</h2>
<p>This is all part of the changing reality of how homeless people of all nationalities are treated across the UK. Greater numbers of people <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-politicians-can-prevent-more-homeless-people-from-dying-on-the-streets-91990">are becoming homeless</a>, while some police forces and local authorities are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/03/homeless-charities-slam-open-season-street-people-crisis">taking tough stances</a> against people begging and sleeping rough, purporting to crack down on the “fake homeless” and arguing that <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-homelessness-a-matter-of-choice-89706">homelessness is a choice</a>, without acknowledging how “choices” are affected by the range of options on offer. </p>
<p>Homelessness charity <a href="https://www.crisis.org.uk">Crisis</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/05/st-mungos-homeless-charity-helped-target-rough-sleepers-to-deport?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">has warned</a>: “If it is true that people are avoiding help from outreach teams for fear of encountering the Home Office, then these people will become more vulnerable, not less.”</p>
<p>In this hostile climate, it’s important to ask national and local charities and shelters for clarity on their policies relating to immigrant rough sleepers and to raise wider questions about the domain of migration enforcement. Organisations like <a href="http://www.redcross.org.uk/en/Where-we-work/In-the-UK">Red Cross</a> and <a href="http://www.praxis.org.uk">Praxis</a> offer specialist services for migrants, along with many others. Information about them can be found online. </p>
<p>It’s also important to ask a rough sleeper what sort of support they’d find helpful. This might involve helping them call a shelter, letting them know about local specialist support, or buying some food, gloves or a hot drink.<br>
The truth is, in the UK today, there are pitifully few options for destitute non-UK-citizens – some of whom have been cut off from both work and welfare, and left with no alternative. Looking beyond immediate measures, it’s crucial to decouple shelter and other basic goods from migration control, and to critique policies that increase destitution – irrespective of citizenship. </p>
<p>There’s also a discomforting possibility that the appeal of Streetlink’s simple app comes from a twin desire to save homeless people, and to hide them from view. Seeing someone sleeping in the snow raises uncomfortable questions about British society today which must be acknowledged – then addressed head-on. It’s not enough to send a text and continue walking. The UK is a democracy. Its policies rely on the taxes and mandate of the electorate. If enough people make it clear that these injustices cannot continue, the government will put a stop to them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tendayi Bloom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When homelessness charities work alongside Home Office immigration teams, it can put vulnerable people off seeking help.Tendayi Bloom, Lecturer in Politics and International Studies, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920892018-02-22T17:11:21Z2018-02-22T17:11:21ZBrexodus of EU citizens from the UK is picking up speed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207476/original/file-20180222-152360-b0gwlt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fewer EU citizens are now coming to the UK and more are leaving, according to <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/february2018">new migration statistics</a> that give credence to the idea of a growing “Brexodus” following the UK’s decision to leave the EU. </p>
<p>Overall 90,000 more EU citizens came to the UK than left in the year to September 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), but this level of net migration was 75,000 lower than the same figure in September 2016. In the same period, 130,000 EU citizens emigrated, the most since 2008.</p>
<p>The ONS head of migration statistics, Nicola White, said Brexit “could well be a factor in people’s decision to move to or from the UK,” though she noted that “people’s decision to migrate is complicated and can be influenced by lots of different reasons.”</p>
<p>Overall net migration – the difference between the number of people coming to the UK and the number of those leaving – stood at 244,000 in the year to September 2017. This was 29,000 lower than the previous year, though it is not a statistically significant change. While these levels are lower than the record level of net migration found between March 2015 and June 2016, they are very similar to those recorded in 2014.</p>
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<p>The fall in EU net migration is particularly apparent for the “old” EU member states, such as France and Spain, known as the EU15, and for Romania and Bulgaria known as the EU2. There was no statistically significant change in the net migration level from the eight newer EU member states, which include Poland and Hungary. There were fewer EU citizens coming to the UK looking for work in year ending September 2017, however, there was no statistically significant change in the numbers of EU citizens arriving with a definite job. </p>
<p>Department for Work and Pensions figures cited by the ONS show a 17% decrease in the number of National Insurance number registrations over the year to December 2017. The decrease was particularly large for Polish nationals (down 34%) and Spanish nationals (down 25%).</p>
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<p>But the patterns of migration are different for EU and non-EU citizens. Non-EU net-migration increased in the year to September 2017 and now stands at more than twice as high as the level of EU migration. The main reason for this, according to the ONS, was an increase in the number of people from outside the EU who are arrived in the UK to study.</p>
<h2>Visa blockages</h2>
<p>There was a 1% increase in the total number of work-related visas to non-EU citizens granted over the same period. This was despite the fact that that there had been a 2.4% decrease in visa sponsorship applications overall. The majority of those visas granted were for skilled workers, known as <a href="https://www.gov.uk/tier-2-general">Tier 2 visas</a>. </p>
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<p>But by February 2018, the UK had hit its cap on Tier 2 visas for skilled non-EU migrants <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/feb/18/uk-hits-skilled-worker-visa-cap-third-month-home-office-refuses-applications">for three months in a row</a>. This means more and more employers are having applications to sponsor visas for highly skilled workers from outside the EU refused. This, combined with the decline in the numbers of EU workers, is causing headaches for employers. As Gerwyn Davies, senior labour market adviser to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, <a href="http://workplaceinsight.net/employers-support-post-brexit-immigration-system-that-tackles-skills-and-labour-shortages/">put it</a>: “The government’s continued rhetoric of an immigration system that only works to attract ‘the brightest and the best’ simply doesn’t tally with what employers want or the economy needs.”</p>
<p>There are persistent <a href="http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-31/immigration/introduction.aspx">concerns</a> among the British public that migrant workers and in particular those from the new EU member states are taking jobs from British workers. Those who were expressing support for ending the EU citizens rights to live and work in the UK <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/british-social-attitudes-survey-2015">were also more likely to support</a> the vote for Leave in the EU referendum. </p>
<p>Yet, numerous studies on the labour market impact of immigration, including <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262178751_Spatial_Concentration_of_Immigrants_and_their_Impact_on_Employment_opportunities_in_the_UK_Labour_Market">my own</a>, show that overall, any negative impact of immigration on the job prospects and wages of native workers is small and very short-term. It depends on relative skill characteristics of immigrant and native workers as well as on the characteristics of the local and national economy. In the long run the native workers benefit from the presence of immigrant workers in the labour market. </p>
<p>Although an <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/neither-side-is-happy-with-this-fudge-on-immigration-920q0l7t7">anticipated</a> large fall in overall net migration levels did not materialise – with levels similar to those reported in November 2017 – there has been another fall in EU net migration. It seems that, for a number of reasons, the UK is becoming a far less attractive place EU citizens – not least because of the uncertainty of Brexit and because very little is known yet about what future immigration policy will look like towards EU citizens once the UK has left the EU.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92089/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marina Shapira has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, British Academy, Nuffield Foundation. </span></em></p>New data shows another drop in the number of EU citizens coming to the UK since Brexit.Marina Shapira, Lecturer in Quantitative Research Methods, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/915012018-02-21T10:13:07Z2018-02-21T10:13:07ZBritons shouldn't get their hopes up about keeping EU citizenship after Brexit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206988/original/file-20180219-116346-20awe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Once an EU citizen, always an EU citizen?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>British citizens living across Europe are waiting to see if an upcoming ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) could give them a bit more certainty about their rights after Brexit. </p>
<p>A Dutch court in Amsterdam <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/07/british-group-wins-right-to-take-brexit-case-to-european-court">recently asked the European court</a> for <a href="https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/industrial-relations-dictionary/preliminary-reference-procedure">clarification</a> in a case brought by five British nationals, settled in the Netherlands. They wanted to know if they could keep their EU citizenship, once the UK leaves the EU.</p>
<p>If the court finds in the British citizens’ favour, it could change the face of Brexit.</p>
<p>About <a href="https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-uk-citizens-live-other-eu-countries/">1.3m people</a> who were born in the UK now live in EU countries outside the UK. These people, and anyone else with British nationality, are all EU citizens because of Article 20 of the <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:12012E/TXT&amp;from=EN">Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union</a> (TFEU). It states that: “Every person holding the nationality of a member state shall be a citizen of the union.” </p>
<p>EU citizenship rights mainly consist of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-eus-rules-on-free-movement-allow-all-its-citizens-to-do-62186">free movement and residence</a>, which means EU citizens are able to live in any member state in the EU. Other benefits also include <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2958113">human rights</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/what-does-brexit-mean-for-eu-citizens-in-britain-and-brits-in-europe">healthcare rights</a>, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/irish-in-uk-could-lose-right-to-work-after-brexit-says-report-1.3314983">working rights</a> and <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=462&amp;">welfare</a>, among many others. </p>
<p>While there has been a lot of media attention on <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-britain-can-deport-eu-citizens-according-to-the-law-86896">what will happen</a> after Brexit to the three million EU citizens who are living in the UK, many British citizens living in the EU are also rightly concerned about what will happen to them. British citizens could also have to leave other EU member states if, after Brexit, there is no adequate deal reached on their status as residents of other EU member states. </p>
<h2>A possible game changer</h2>
<p>If successful in this case, British citizens may be able to keep some, or even all of their rights after Brexit. This would also favour British citizens at home in Britain who would continue to benefit from some or all of their current rights which they enjoy because of their EU citizenship status. These include moving to live in other EU member states, or even simply not needing to get <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/09/britons-may-have-to-apply-to-visit-europe-under-eu-visa-scheme">a visa</a> to travel to the EU.</p>
<p>What makes the argument of the claimants in the case potentially quite strong is that according to a <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=46599&amp;doclang=en">2001 ruling by the CJEU</a>, EU citizenship is “destined to be the fundamental status of nationals of member states”. The CJEU will need to consider whether EU citizenship is so fundamental that it shouldn’t be so easily taken away. </p>
<p>They have ruled on this in the past. In one 2010 <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&amp;docid=75336&amp;pageIndex=0&amp;doclang=en&amp;mode=lst&amp;dir=&amp;occ=first&amp;part=1&amp;cid=609759">case</a>, an Austrian national called Janko Rottmann wanted to become a German citizen. Austria does not allow dual nationality, so Rottmann gave up being Austrian. Unfortunately for him, German authorities found out that he had a criminal record that he had hid from them, so denied him Germany nationality. Without any nationality, or more importantly, nationality of any EU member state, he also did not have EU citizenship status. </p>
<p>The CJEU decided that if an individual is deprived of their EU citizenship status, it needed to be for a proportionate reason. This suggested to many that the court took EU citizenship status seriously.</p>
<h2>Legal and political roadblocks</h2>
<p>But there are other obstacles for the claimants. Like the entirety of Brexit itself, this case is unprecedented and it is unclear how the CJEU judges will react. They may simply <a href="https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2018/02/08/ronan-mccrea-brexit-eu-citizenship-rights-of-uk-nationals-and-the-court-of-justice/">throw out the case altogether</a>, because it is still too early to decide anything on Brexit. The court has previously <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=9ea7d2dc30dddffecb798ea34a29abf2fde636ea9881.e34KaxiLc3qMb40Rch0SaxyNaNn0?text=&amp;docid=83710&amp;pageIndex=0&amp;doclang=en&amp;mode=lst&amp;dir=&amp;occ=first&amp;part=1&amp;cid=753499">refused to consider</a> anything hypothetical, for the simple reason that it does not have enough information. The judges may decide that depriving British citizens of their EU citizenship because of Brexit could, overall, be proportionate. </p>
<p>The process of withdrawing as a member state from the EU is not only a legal issue but also a political one. Brexit and how it will look is not supposed to be in the court’s hands, but rather in those of the negotiators. While the questions are valid ones for British citizens living elsewhere in the EU to ask, the Court of Justice of the EU is not the right place to look for answers. </p>
<p>There are political alternatives on the table. One member of the European Parliament, Charles Goerens, suggested <a href="https://www.charlesgoerens.eu/blog-charles/eu-citizenship/">associate citizenship</a> for all ex-member states of the EU for an annual fee. However, I believe such associate citizenship is <a href="https://eutopialaw.com/2016/11/18/the-problems-associated-with-associate-citizenship-of-the-eu/">problematic</a> for both political and practical reasons.</p>
<p>It could be some time before the CJEU gets round to handing down its judgement on this question: on average, it takes <a href="https://eutopialaw.com/2016/12/09/to-refer-or-not-to-refer-that-is-the-question/#_ftn23">approximately a year</a>. Unfortunately, there is a good chance that the court will decide not to get involved. This is despite the fact that the question remains on the minds of many people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91501/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrienne Yong receives funding from the City Research Pump Priming Scheme for a project entitled &quot;The Brexit effect on the private and family lives of EU citizens in the UK&quot;.</span></em></p>A Dutch court has asked the European Court of Justice for clarification on whether British citizens should be allowed to keep their citizenship after Brexit.Adrienne Yong, Lecturer at The City Law School, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/894632017-12-21T11:50:57Z2017-12-21T11:50:57ZThe UK can no longer remove EU citizens for sleeping rough – why this matters for Brexit<p>The Home Office is no longer able to treat rough sleeping by EU citizens as an abuse of their free movement rights. A December <a href="https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/r-gureckis-v-sshd-ors-20171214.pdf">ruling</a> by the High Court in a case brought by a Latvian man called Gunars Gureckis is both welcome and important. It puts paid – for the time being at least – to a government policy that exposed people to detention and <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-britain-can-deport-eu-citizens-according-to-the-law-86896">removal</a> for sleeping on the streets.</p>
<p>The policy was introduced in Home Office guidance in February 2017, though mention of it online was removed after the High Court ruling. But the very existence of the policy in the first place – and the fact the government still has the option of removing EU citizens for “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/668093/GI-EEA-admin-removal-v4.0EXT.pdf">failing to exercise”</a> their rights under EU law – demonstrates the ongoing vulnerability of people on the margins of society. </p>
<p>This has wider ramifications. In the same week that the Gureckis decision was delivered, the EU accepted that there had been <a href="http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/XT-20011-2017-INIT/en/pdf">“sufficient progress”</a> in Brexit negotiations, including on the issue of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-brexit-deal-means-for-eu-citizens-and-their-families-88901">EU citizens’ rights in the UK</a>, for talks to proceed to the next stage. Such progress was made, in part, because the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/joint_report.pdf">UK agreed</a> that all EU citizens living in the UK in accordance with <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:en:PDF">EU free movement law</a> on exit day would be protected by a future withdrawal agreement. </p>
<p>But the Gureckis judgment shows that those EU rules can struggle to safeguard those most in need of their protection. It calls into question the appropriateness of relying on laws surrounding EU free movement as a reference point for securing EU citizens’ residence rights as Brexit approaches. Instead, those drafting the final deal must ensure that a variety of voices are heard as the UK withdrawal progresses – especially those of individuals who have long fallen through the safety net meant to apply to EU citizens in the UK. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Read more: <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-brexit-deal-means-for-eu-citizens-and-their-families-88901">What the Brexit deal means for EU citizens and their families</a></strong></em> </p>
<hr>
<p>The High Court held that although <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:en:PDF">EU law allows</a> member states to withdraw EU citizens’ residence rights in cases of “abuse”, this does not include rough sleeping. EU citizens <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:en:PDF">are able to stay</a> in the UK for the first three months after entry if they hold a valid identity card or passport, and do not become an unreasonable burden on the social security system. </p>
<p>They <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:en:PDF">may reside for longer</a> if they are job-seekers, workers, self-employed or self-sufficient. No accommodation requirement accompanies these residence conditions – and the court ruled that rough sleeping by people who are working, which the government claimed is done to avoid accommodation costs, could not be considered an “abuse” of free movement rules. </p>
<p>This meant that the Home Office policy to deport rough sleepers was discriminatory, because it treated EU citizens differently from British rough sleepers. The High Court also found that the targeted questioning of EU rough sleepers by immigration officers on the presumption that they were abusing free movement rights was actually <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:en:PDF">prohibited</a> under EU law. </p>
<h2>Too late for many</h2>
<p>At first glance, the ruling suggests that EU law is able to protect vulnerable EU citizens from systematic removal. A closer look, however, reveals that the rules can be open to a broad interpretation by governments in pursuit of restrictive immigration policy. When these policies affect already marginalised individuals, such as rough sleepers, they can continue unchallenged for a considerable time. </p>
<p>Gureckis and his co-claimants were only able to contest the Home Office guidance with the support of pro bono organisations, including the Public Interest Law Unit at <a href="http://www.lambethlawcentre.org/sidebar/judicial-review-of-removal-of-eea-nationals-for-rough-sleeping">Lambeth Law Centre</a> and North East London Migrant Action. The formal roll-out of the guidance in February was preceded by a pilot scheme called “<a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2017-01-16/60110/">Operation Adoze</a>”, which ran in London in late 2015, itself preceded by smaller Home Office initiatives in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/jul/20/eastern-european-rough-sleepers-deported">2010</a> and <a href="https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/home/police-crack-down-on-romanian-rough-sleepers-36440">2013</a>.</p>
<p>These earlier operations did not exclusively rely on the definition of rough sleeping as an abuse of free movement rights – the route now ruled unlawful by the High Court. Instead, administrative removals happened on the basis that, because EU citizens could not demonstrate that they were working, self-employed or self-sufficient, they were not exercising their rights. The Home Office still <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/668093/GI-EEA-admin-removal-v4.0EXT.pdf">continues</a> to remove individuals on this basis. </p>
<p>Though the Home Office has now <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/668093/GI-EEA-admin-removal-v4.0EXT.pdf">removed reference</a> to rough sleeping as an abuse of free movement in its guidance, it seems likely that “persistent rough sleeping” will still be used as an indicator that an EU citizen is not legally resident, which could lead to removals. Even those rough sleepers in work, or benefiting from permanent resident entitlements, will often face significant difficulty gathering the paperwork necessary to provide evidence of their right to stay.</p>
<h2>Unheard voices</h2>
<p>Alongside rough sleepers, those in precarious, temporary, low-paid or unpaid work often <a href="http://www.cpag.org.uk/sites/default/files/CPAG-Poverty-politically-acceptable-poverty-Oct-2014_0.pdf">struggle to demonstrate</a> that they have been “legally resident” under EU law to the satisfaction of the Home Office. This might be because they fail to meet technical EU requirements, such as having <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:en:PDF">comprehensive sickness insurance</a> during periods of unemployment, or because of the significant challenge of compiling evidence of multiple jobs over historical periods. As the current deal on citizens’ rights confers residence entitlements on those living in the UK in accordance with EU rules on Brexit day, these technical and administrative challenges could limit how much the future withdrawal agreement can protect their rights. </p>
<p>The residence insecurity facing all EU citizens in the UK following the June 2016 referendum has at least put some of these issues under the microscope. The government committed to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/657694/TECHNICAL_NOTE_CITIZENS__RIGHTS_-_ADMINISTRATIVE_PROCEDURES_IN_THE_UK.pdf">dropping the requirement</a> for comprehensive sickness insurance, after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/14/dutchwoman-resident-in-uk-for-30-years-may-have-to-leave-after-brexit">the press caught wind</a> of the negative impact this was having on the residence applications of long-term EU workers. For similar reasons, the UK pledged to introduce easier application procedures, and to draw on its <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/657694/TECHNICAL_NOTE_CITIZENS__RIGHTS_-_ADMINISTRATIVE_PROCEDURES_IN_THE_UK.pdf">own income tax data</a> to inform decisions. While this caters for those in long-term, permanent work, those in precarious or unpaid work are still at risk – though the government has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/657694/TECHNICAL_NOTE_CITIZENS__RIGHTS_-_ADMINISTRATIVE_PROCEDURES_IN_THE_UK.pdf">vowed</a> to abandon the requirement that work must be “genuine and effective” to count. </p>
<p>After Brexit, and the transitional period which is likely to follow it, EU citizens will need to possess residence documents to have a right to reside in the UK. Obtaining a document ahead of immigration checks or for presentation to prospective landlords or employers, will be very difficult for those living on the streets and present challenges for many more besides. </p>
<p>The government’s new application procedures must therefore be rigorously scrutinised, and a wide range of voices must be able to contribute to that examination. Those who faced residence insecurity as a result of administrative policy well before the Leave vote, and are likely to be most affected by Brexit, must be heard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89463/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Reynolds does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rough sleeping by EU citizens in the UK can no longer be considered an abuse of free movement rights – but the homeless are still vulnerable.Stephanie Reynolds, Lecturer in Law and Co-director Liverpool European Law Unit, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/889012017-12-14T15:56:45Z2017-12-14T15:56:45ZWhat the Brexit deal means for EU citizens and their families<p>There has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-deal-breaks-deadlock-experts-react-88879">mixed reaction</a> to the deal agreed between the EU and the UK on December 8 that broke the deadlock in Brexit talks. A key part of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/joint-report-on-progress-during-phase-1-of-negotiations-under-article-50-teu-on-the-uks-orderly-withdrawal-from-the-eu">agreement</a> was on the rights of EU citizens living in the UK after Brexit. But while the deal gave clarity on some issues, it left some big questions unanswered for those who have taken advantage of EU free movement rules to live in the UK. </p>
<p>Under the agreement, which applies to both EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the other 27 member states (EU27), citizens who move before the day of Brexit – March 29, 2019 – will continue to have <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/the-beginning-of-end-citizens-rights-in.html">some, but by no means all, of the rights</a> that they currently enjoy.</p>
<p>The agreement is aimed at cushioning migrant citizens from the effects of Brexit by creating a special post-Brexit status. This will allow protected citizens and their families to continue to live in their current host country, as well as a right to work and a right to equal treatment. Crucially for British pensioners currently living in the EU, this will allow them to maintain a <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcareabroad/EHIC/Pages/about-the-ehic.aspx">European health insurance card</a> and the right to export their British pensions.</p>
<p>Administrative formalities and costs for obtaining post-Brexit status will be kept to a minimum, and citizens will be allowed to maintain their status even if absent from their country of residence for up to five years. This is more generous than the normal EU regime, <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:EN:PDF">which allows for absences</a> of up to two years. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/what-the-eus-rules-on-free-movement-allow-all-its-citizens-to-do-62186">What the EU's rules on free movement allow all its citizens to do</a>
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<h2>Spouses and partners</h2>
<p>The post-Brexit status also extends to “protected” family members who are legally resident in the host state at the time of Brexit. These include spouses, registered partners if the country of residence recognises registered partnerships, children (even if only of the partner), and dependent parents or grandparents. </p>
<p>In a small victory for EU citizens, the post-Brexit right to family reunification will in some instances also apply after Brexit. If the family link already existed before Brexit, even if the family member was not yet living in the host country, the family member will have a right to join the citizen enjoying the post-Brexit status. This means, for example, that a Polish citizen living in the UK and married to someone living in Poland at the point of Brexit will continue to have a right to bring their spouse to the UK without having to satisfy the onerous <a href="https://theconversation.com/broken-families-what-happens-to-couples-torn-apart-by-immigration-rules-73546">economic thresholds imposed by UK law</a>. </p>
<p>But it excludes citizens who fall in love or get married after the day of Brexit. This means that in the UK, economic resources will be a gateway to family happiness, as is the case now for non-EU migrants. </p>
<h2>The grey areas</h2>
<p>Beside the limited right to family reunification there are grey areas in the agreement: the first concerns the issue of non-economically active citizens. Under current <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:EN:PDF">EU law</a>, they have to possess sufficient resources and comprehensive health insurance in order to have the legal right to reside in another member state. But in practice, those conditions are not always met and there are many “informal” residents whose residence status is neither wholly legal or wholly illegal. Migrants – usually women – who give up work in order to take up caring responsibilities for children or family members, are not automatically protected in EU law, and will not be protected by the Brexit agreement.</p>
<p>Children born or adopted after Brexit with at least one parent with post-Brexit status, will be protected by the deal as will children of single parents. However, the rights of children seem to have been overlooked: currently a child of a migrant EU worker who is in education maintains the right to stay in the host country until the end of their studies. Their primary carer also has the right to stay, since otherwise the child would not have a realistic possibility of finishing their schooling. The agreement does not mention these rights, and unless they are specifically included in a future section of the withdrawal agreement some children will be at risk of losing their right to reside in the country where they currently live.</p>
<p>Another problem relates to the extent to which those citizens who are affected by Brexit will be protected if they decide to go back to their home country – so for example a Spanish woman with settled status in Britain who decides to return to live in Spain. Under current EU law, when she returns to Spain she has the right to to bring her family back with her, regardless of the nationality of the family member. </p>
<p>This does not seem to be the case under this agreement which, in a bizarre turn of events, might make it difficult for EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU27, to return to their member state of nationality. Naturally, they might be unwilling to move back if they cannot be accompanied by their spouse or partner. </p>
<h2>British citizens in the EU</h2>
<p>British citizens living elsewhere in the EU have been largely neglected by the UK negotiators, with their rights primarily championed by the European Parliament. As they will be former EU citizens, I have previously <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2017/583154/IPOL_STU(2017)583154_EN.pdf">argued</a> that their rights should be safeguarded beyond just reciprocating those rights guaranteed to EU citizens in the UK at the time of Brexit. </p>
<p>Particularly disappointing in this respect is the “locked in” situation for British citizens who will <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/11/sacrificed-on-the-altar-of-trade-brits-in-europe-feel-betrayed-by-brexit-deal">lose their right to free movement</a> elsewhere in Europe and therefore have no choice but to remain where they are at the time of Brexit.</p>
<p>All in all, this agreement constitutes progress from the situation <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-new-barriers-can-eu-citizens-expect-in-their-daily-lives-after-brexit-83586">earlier in the negotiations</a>, and yet it is not satisfactory for everyone. More rights will need to be granted to ensure protection of more marginalised citizens, and to ensure that UK citizens in the EU are fully protected as former EU citizens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eleanor Spaventa has authored independent reports for the European Commission and the European Parliament, including one on European Citizens and Brexit. She is part of a European Commission funded network on free movement and has benefited in the past from European Commision funding.</span></em></p>The deal was not as bad as it could have been, but not as good as it should have been.Eleanor Spaventa, Professor of European Union Law, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/888792017-12-08T10:50:27Z2017-12-08T10:50:27ZBrexit deal breaks deadlock – experts react<p>EU negotiators <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42277040">announced</a> on December 8 that enough progress has been achieved in Brexit negotiations for talks to move on to a second phase – the nature of the future relationship between the UK and the EU. A deal on the Irish border, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/q-a-whats-going-on-with-brexit-and-the-irish-border-88520">major sticking point</a> in the talks, was given the go-ahead by both the EU and UK. Here academic experts explain aspects of the agreement. </p>
<h2>The Irish border</h2>
<p><strong>Katy Hayward, Reader in Sociology, Queen’s University Belfast</strong></p>
<p>The UK government still seeks a future deal with the EU that brings the benefits of single market and customs union membership without the obligations. This goal set alarm bells ringing in Brussels and Dublin long ago. Its sheer impossibility meant hurtling towards either a “no deal” scenario (in which case the Irish border would become a hard border) or an “ignore the problem” scenario, in which case the border would be a dangerously gaping hole in the top left corner of the single market.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/joint_report.pdf">joint agreement</a> between the UK and EU secures against both these risks. It asserts that the UK seeks to realise its aims of avoiding a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland “through the overall EU-UK relationship”. But it then allows that “should this not be possible”, it will propose “specific solutions” to tie up the loose ends.</p>
<p>In the event that there is a failure to find such agreed solutions, the UK will “maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement”.</p>
<p>This is such a major concession, of the tail-wags-dog type, that efforts will be concentrated on finding those “agreed solutions” for Northern Ireland – which we can safely assume will be necessary. The Irish question is far from resolved and there are laborious and detailed negotiations to come.</p>
<p>As such, the joint agreement wisely allows for a special strand of the phase two discussions between the EU and the UK to be dedicated to the “detailed arrangements” necessary to give effect to the ambitious commitments to Northern Ireland/Ireland contained here.</p>
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<p><strong>Feargal Cochrane, Professor of International Conflict Analysis, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent</strong></p>
<p>So there we have it – more constructive ambiguity, which is fitting in terms of the Good Friday Agreement and broader peace process. This agreement can, and is, being read differently by the Irish government and the DUP, which is hardly surprising.</p>
<p>However, the Irish government position is unequivocal and the deal is essentially much the same as the one rejected by the DUP just days previously, certainly in terms of the implications for trade harmonisation in the two parts of Ireland.</p>
<p>The Irish government is clearly convinced that this means there will, in practice, be no need for border checks between the two jurisdictions after the UK leaves the EU.</p>
<p>The DUP, for its part, is <a href="http://www.mydup.com/news/article/democratic-unionist-party-statement#.WipAqmXOgSc.twitter">reassured</a> that Northern Ireland will be constitutionally aligned with the rest of the UK after Brexit and there will be no air-lock at Great Britain that differentiates Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK. However, the DUP has, at the same time, admitted that the details of how full alignment will work in practice while maintaining NI’s alignment with the rest of the UK require more detailed explanation.</p>
<p>The implication of the wording is that the UK will have to harmonise with Ireland (which, by the way, means the EU). So it’s not entirely clear how the UK is leaving the customs union and single market, other than saying it has left but in practical terms not actually leaving. This might put the wind up some of prime minister Theresa May’s colleagues, who thought Brexit was going to give them their country back.</p>
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<p>It seems like the Irish government has received the guarantee it needed that there will be no visible border in Ireland after Brexit. The UK government and DUP have also bought some time to unscramble how to do this in the next phase of the process.</p>
<p>In essence, while the DUP may choose to dress it up in red, white and blue, it looks like Northern Ireland will be clad in blue and gold for the foreseeable future following this agreement.</p>
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<p><strong>Brendan Ciarán Browne, Assistant Professor &amp; Course Coordinator MPhil Conflict Resolution, Trinity College Dublin</strong></p>
<p>Beyond practical realities, <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-never-underestimate-the-political-potency-of-symbolism-in-northern-ireland-88609">symbolically</a> the deal is important. In explicitly dismissing the notion of a hard border on the island of Ireland the negotiating teams have been sensitive to what this could lead to in terms of further political instability in Northern Ireland and the potential for a return to violence. </p>
<p>The hard fought strand in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/136652/agreement.pdf">1998 Good Friday Agreement</a> focusing on self-determination, that affords citizens born in the north the right to determine as Irish, has undoubtedly been safeguarded as a result of the deal. This allows those in the north who identity as Irish to also remain as European citizens. </p>
<p>By placing the Irish question at the heart of this phase of the negotiations, the EU negotiators realised the symbolic importance of the right to self-determination for citizens in the north. They have also further demonstrated their commitment to upholding the values that are enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement. </p>
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<p><strong>David Phinnemore, Professor of European Politics, Queen’s University Belfast</strong></p>
<p>The Irish dimension of Brexit has at last gained the profile it deserves in UK political debate. The assumption that you can leave the EU, its customs union and its single market and avoid any hardening of the Irish border has been exposed as folly. </p>
<p>This is made abundantly clear in the text agreed by the UK and the EU. It commits the UK to regulatory alignment with those EU rules regarding the single market and the customs union that support not just north-south cooperation on the island of the Ireland, but also the “all-island economy” and the protection of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.</p>
<p>How this is to be achieved has still to be worked out. The same goes for the range of regulations where alignment would be required. Ultimately, if the UK and EU don’t reach agreement on all this when striking a trade deal, the UK has committed to maintaining the “full alignment” necessary. Given the EU’s insistence on respecting the integrity of its own legal order and the UK pledge not to impose a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, that could in effect mean the whole of the UK staying in the single market and a customs union arrangement with the EU.</p>
<p>The autonomous alignment this entails does not sit well with the “take back control” mantra of many Brexiteers, and that’s before its decided who oversees the eventual arrangement. Whether London can and will deliver remains to be seen.</p>
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<p><strong>Gavin Barrett, Professor at the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin</strong></p>
<p>With this <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/joint_report.pdf">joint agreement</a>, an unfamiliar concept has found its way into the world’s political lexicon: regulatory alignment. It seem innocuous but don’t be fooled. Regulatory alignment will be the terrain on which Brexit’s ultimate shape will be determined. </p>
<p>The British prime minister, Theresa May, effectively needed Ireland’s assent to move to phase two of Brexit negotiations. Ireland wanted protection against any prospect of renewed controls on the Northern Irish frontier. The result was article 49 of the agreement, promising Ireland that the UK will “maintain full alignment” with the customs union and those internal market rules supporting Ireland’s all-island economy, cooperation and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. But to please the DUP, article 50 of the agreement nonetheless promises Northern Irish businesses “unfettered access” to the UK single market.</p>
<p>For hardline eurosceptics such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, the ability to diverge from EU regulations in pursuit of international trade deals is an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/05/uk-brexit-team-is-walking-a-tightrope-to-reach-first-phase-deal">“indelible” red line</a> in Brexit talks. Pleasing them, May still insists the UK will leave both the customs union and the single European market.</p>
<p>These three commitments seem impossible to square – unless the UK does one of three things, each of which anger somebody. First, it angers Eurosceptics by recreating the present EU customs union with another similar EU-UK customs arrangement and by mirroring most single European market rules. Second, it angers the DUP by introducing customs controls on Northern Ireland, while keeping Northern Ireland in the UK’s single market, like a little Norway to the EU’s single market. Or, third, it angers Ireland by giving “full alignment” much less significance than Ireland thinks it has. </p>
<p>It is an impossible trilemma. Something has to give. But that is for another day. For now May’s government, and the truly lunatic escapade that is Brexit, hurtle onwards.</p>
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<h2>Citizens’ rights</h2>
<p><strong>Stijn Smismans, Professor of European Law, Director of the Centre for European Law and Governance, Cardiff University</strong></p>
<p>EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in Europe remain in a lot of uncertainty following the deal on the first stage of Brexit negotiations.</p>
<p>There is some progress in the Joint Agreement on the status and rights people will hold once they have obtained what’s called “settled status”, particularly in relation to family reunion and their acquired social security rights. However, this is far from a guarantee protecting their current rights.</p>
<p>Settled status will not be as protective as the current status of permanent residence. Even people who already hold permanent residence could be deported more easily on grounds of criminality, which goes beyond the restrictive criteria on when EU citizens can be deported that the EU <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-britain-can-deport-eu-citizens-according-to-the-law-86896">currently allows</a>.</p>
<p>The main problem is that the criteria and checks for registration to get “settled status” remain unclear. Neither is it clear which documents people will need to provide as proof. The previous application system for permanent residence for EU citizens led to nearly 30% of applications <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/27/rejections-eu-citizens-seeking-uk-residency">being rejected</a>. If similar criteria are applied, such as applicants needing to prove being in work or having sufficient resources to live on, the consequences would be dramatic. </p>
<p>The agreement promises a simplified registration system but does not explain how this will be organised. Neither the criteria for application nor the way in which the online system could reach those most vulnerable are explained.</p>
<p>EU citizens have been promised to have their status guaranteed for life – but the proposal that the EU Court of Justice would lose its control powers over this after eight years undermines that principle.</p>
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<h2>How Europe reacted</h2>
<p><strong>Patricia Hogwood, Reader in European Politics, University of Westminster</strong></p>
<p>The first reactions from Europe to the deal were predictably anodyne. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, <a href="http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2017/12/08/statement-by-president-donald-tusk-on-second-phase-brexit/#">gave all the credit</a> for the breakthrough to Theresa May. While this flatters the prime minister, it also serves the main aim of the European institutions and leading member states – to prop up May’s failing government long enough to conclude a viable Brexit deal.</p>
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<p>The Dutch prime minister has declared that <a href="https://twitter.com/MinPres/status/939064047944814592">he is “happy”</a> that the talks can move on. Only a few have dared to prod the gap between the constructive ambiguity of the statement and the problems that will arise in translating it into an acceptable political compromise in practice. Sven Giegold, a German MEP, has branded the deal a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/08/brexit-deal-nigel-farage-says-deal-not-acceptable-business-leaders/">“fake compromise”</a> and claimed that regulatory alignment won’t be enough to avoid a hard border. </p>
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<h2>What happens now?</h2>
<p><strong>Alan Wager, Research Associate, The UK in a Changing Europe at King’s College London</strong></p>
<p>This agreement looks like a political fudge that tells us very little, but keeps the show on the road. In fact, it’s the opposite. We now have a much clearer idea of what Brexit will look like. But, as a result, its political shelf life is limited. </p>
<p>Brexit means “full alignment” – putting the UK firmly in the EU’s sphere of influence when it comes to rules on trade. The Brexit choice at this stage can be boiled down to two different paths: one that continued to hug the EU27 close and remain in their trading sphere of influence, and another that returned “British laws” to the UK and facilitated expansive global trade deals. The first path is looking a lot more likely.</p>
<p>The key issue – how to leave the EU’s frameworks, while not hardening the Irish border – remains unresolved. This is because it is an intractable logical problem that cannot be meaningfully resolved. So the UK will, in any meaningful sense, remain subject to these rules and regulations. The question is, once all this comes out in the wash, whether this softer form of Brexit will still be sellable to Theresa May’s party.</p>
<p>Leading Brexit figures such as Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, sensing in the lead up to this crunch point that the Brexit process could have stalled, have rediscovered the joys of collective cabinet responsibility. But, in the new year, this could come to look less like a fudge, and more like one of those leftover stale mince pies: no one wants it, and harder than it looks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katy Hayward was commissioned by the EU Parliament Committee on Constututional Affairs to co-author a report on UK Withdrawal and the Good Friday Agreement. She is a board member of the Centre for Cross Border Studies. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Phinnemore has received funding from the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council and the European Union. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Feargal Cochrane is Vice Chair of the Political Studies Association in the UK.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stijn Smismans has given legal advice, on a voluntary basis, to The3Million association. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Wager, Brendan Ciarán Browne, Gavin Barrett, and Patricia Hogwood do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Theresa May has reached an agreement with the EU that will enable her to proceed to the second stage of Brexit negotiations. Here's what it all means.Katy Hayward, Reader in Sociology, Queen's University BelfastAlan Wager, Research Associate, The UK in a Changing Europe at King's College London, King's College LondonBrendan Ciarán Browne, Assistant Professor & Course Coordinator MPhil Conflict Resolution, Trinity College DublinDavid Phinnemore, Professor of European Politics, Queen's University BelfastFeargal Cochrane, Professor of International Conflict Analysis, School of Politics and International Relations, University of KentGavin Barrett, Professor at the Sutherland School of Law, University College DublinPatricia Hogwood, Reader in European Politics, University of WestminsterStijn Smismans, Professor of European Law, Director of the Centre for European Law and Governance, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/868962017-11-23T09:38:51Z2017-11-23T09:38:51ZWhen Britain can deport EU citizens – according to the law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194009/original/file-20171109-13303-1nzjnvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite the fact that EU citizens enjoy the <a href="http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-the-functioning-of-the-european-union-and-comments/part-2-non-discrimination-and-citizenship-of-the-union/162-article-20.html">right</a> to move to and live in other member states, the UK government has recently ramped up efforts to deport them.</p>
<p>In the year ending June 2017, 5,301 EU citizens <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-april-to-june-2017/how-many-people-are-detained-or-returned">were deported</a> from the UK, a 20% rise compared to the previous year. This is a troubling figure, especially considering that the law supposedly protects EU citizens from deportation. The charity, <a href="http://www.biduk.org/posts/316">Bail for Immigration Detainees</a>, has noticed a rise in <a href="http://www.lupinsimmigration.com/european-commission-looking-potential-breaches-european-law/">EU nationals involved in deportations</a>. </p>
<p>As many EU citizens remain <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/24/eu-citizens-shadow-brexit-sleepless-anxious-depressed">anxious</a> about their future in the UK after Brexit, the government has unfortunately <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/26/boris-johnson-declares-rights-eu-citizens-uk-will-protected/">sent mixed messages</a> as to whether EU citizens will enjoy the same rights in the UK once it leaves the EU, or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/19/brexit-uk-deport-millions-of-eu-nationals-report-jchr-human-rights">if they will simply be deported</a>. </p>
<p>Debate already exists in the UK about whether certain individuals “deserve” to be expelled, from people who are <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30002138">not working but seeking welfare benefits</a>, to people who are <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36467725">convicted of criminal activity</a>. Now more questions are arising about whether just about anyone can be deported.</p>
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<p>Adding to the distress is a recent government letter, sent on behalf of the Home Office, to a Romanian national. It advised him to consider leaving the UK to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/29/home-office-eu-citizens-leave-uk-avoid-destitution">“avoid becoming destitute”</a> after he was refused emergency accommodation. </p>
<p>The UK’s refusal to provide him with emergency accommodation should not on its own amount to him being asked to leave, especially not under EU law which states that citizens are given the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-eus-rules-on-free-movement-allow-all-its-citizens-to-do-6218">right to live and reside freely</a> in any member state. By suggesting he leave, it appears that the Home Office was trying to restrict his freedom to move and reside. The letter added to the already <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-new-barriers-can-eu-citizens-expect-in-their-daily-lives-after-brexit-83586">hostile political atmosphere in the UK</a>, and does nothing to allay concerns for worried EU citizens.</p>
<h2>EU law on deportation</h2>
<p>The law surrounding deportation in the EU comes from Article 28 of <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32004L0038&amp;">Citizens’ Directive 2004/38</a> which states that EU citizens can only be deported from another member state for reasons of public policy or public security. There are only three situations in which deportation is allowed.</p>
<p>The first requires that alongside the public policy or public security reasons, deportation can only be allowed if adequate consideration of various factors are taken into account. These include how long the person has been living in the country, their age, health, family and financial situation, and how well they’ve integrated into society.</p>
<p>The second situation concerns <a href="http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/documents-formalities/eu-nationals-permanent-residence/index_en.htm">permanent residents</a>, those who have have lived in a member state for five years or more (you are not required to have documents proving this, though it is <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/25/home-office-urging-eu-nationals-not-apply-permanent-residence/">necessary for British citizenship applications</a>). </p>
<p>For permanent residents, only serious grounds under public policy or public security will justify expulsion. What a “serious” ground is must be justified by the member states, but there is no guidance in the directive as to what constitutes “serious”. It must relate to a <a href="http://www.airecentre.org/data/files/resources/47/AIRE-Deportation-of-EEA-Nationals-Individuals.pdf">fundamental interest of society</a>. These include preventing unlawful immigration, maintaining public order, preventing tax evasion, countering terrorism and preventing repeat criminal offences.</p>
<p>The third situation is for those who have been in a member state for the last ten years – or minors. In these cases, only imperative grounds of public policy or public security will be accepted. Again, “imperative” grounds are up to the member states to justify and the directive offers no definition. However, it is clear that they are stricter than “serious” grounds. Therefore, the longer you have been in a country, the more difficult it becomes to deport you. Case law has accepted being involved in a drug dealing organisation as an imperative ground of public security, but the general <a href="http://europeanlawblog.eu/2012/05/22/case-c-34809-p-i-expulsion-of-an-eu-citizen-and-the-notion-of-imperative-grounds-of-public-security/">meaning of “imperative” remains unclear</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the fairly high level of protection under these provisions, the UK has been known to interpret the public policy and public security reasons for deportation quite broadly, in some cases arguing that <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-eu-citizens-deportations-rise-uk-home-office-referendum-a7935266.html">rough sleeping</a> counts. This decision is now being <a href="http://www.lambethlawcentre.org/sidebar/judicial-review-of-removal-of-eea-nationals-for-rough-sleeping">challenged before the High Court</a>. The EU has also not taken kindly to this behaviour. The European Commission is currently investigating whether the UK is actually <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/30/brussels-uk-deported-eu-citizens">targeting EU nationals</a> and if so, the UK would be in breach of its obligations as an EU member state. </p>
<h2>Human rights and deportation</h2>
<p>In its letter to the Romanian national, the Home Office suggested he leave so as to “enjoy access to all your ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights] without interference”. But this seems a strange suggestion, given that the UK is also bound by the ECHR and the government stated earlier this year that are <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/604516/Great_repeal_bill_white_paper_accessible.pdf">“no plans to withdraw”</a> after Brexit. It should, therefore, also be committed to conferring such rights without interference. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf">Article 8</a> of the ECHR protects the right to private and family life and deportation has previously been <a href="http://www.1cor.com/1315/?form_1155.replyids=536">deemed an interference</a> in this. The Home Office’s suggestion that EU citizens should go elsewhere to seek better protection makes it appears as if the UK wants to wash its hands of anyone burdensome in their territory, and certainly of its obligations under the ECHR.</p>
<p>Laws exist to protect EU citizens from being deported. Yet, the Home Office seems to want to downplay the obligations that it is bound to ensure under EU law, but also under the ECHR. Attempting to shirk its responsibilities even before Brexit has occurred does not set a positive precedent for the protection of EU citizens’ rights going forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrienne Yong ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d&#39;une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n&#39;a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son poste universitaire.</span></em></p>Deportations of EU nationals in the UK have risen by 20%, despite EU laws protecting their rights.Adrienne Yong, Lecturer at The City Law School, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/870302017-11-08T15:23:01Z2017-11-08T15:23:01ZEU citizens' rights and Brexit negotiations: both sides could be violating human rights law<p>Around 5m European citizens affected by the outcome of the UK referendum (EU citizens in the UK, and British citizens in the EU) have been living in a state of uncertainty for <a href="http://mailchi.mp/the3million/et4z0u9759-739797">more than 500 days</a>.</p>
<p>Months on from the EU referendum, they have had little, if any, reassurance about their right to stay and work in the UK and the EU after Brexit. </p>
<p>Many in the UK have reacted by seeking permanent residence status. This process now has a failure rate of 28% and an average waiting time of <a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/foi-response-waiting-times-permanent-residence-certificates-triple/">116 days</a>. </p>
<p>The government has announced that EU citizens and family members will have to apply to the Home Office to get a new <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/status-of-eu-nationals-in-the-uk-what-you-need-to-know">“settled status”</a>. Those who have already obtained “permanent residence” will need to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/citizens-rights-administrative-procedures-in-the-uk">apply again</a> (though via a simplified process).</p>
<p>Some citizens are precluded from obtaining either status. Women with young children who take time out of work to look after them, for <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/07/20/when-unpaid-childcare-isnt-work-eu-residency-rights-have-gendered-consequences/">example</a>, don’t qualify. </p>
<p>Those who may have initially satisfied the five-year continuous residence requirement, but were subsequently away from the country for long periods of time, will need to start from scratch. </p>
<p>Others who have arrived in the UK after March 29 2017 are also living with the threat that they might not be able to stay at all after Brexit day, thanks to the lack of clarity about the <a href="http://ukandeu.ac.uk/eu-citizens-rights-the-fair-and-serious-offer-that-wasnt/">UK government’s plans</a> for them, particularly with regards to the cut-off date. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/eu-migration-uk-brexit-referendum-latest-net-fall-figures-why-racism-hate-crime-brexodus-government-a7911196.html">record number</a> have decided to simply leave the UK. </p>
<h2>Bargaining chips</h2>
<p>The start of the negotiations in May 2017, paradoxically made things worse. Key rights became the subject of a bargaining exercise. EU citizens in the UK can now no longer be sure that they will be able to bring family members to live with them after Brexit or that they will retain their “settled status” after spending two years away from the country. UK citizens in the EU no longer know if they will be able to move freely across the EU27 member states, though many of them may be currently living in one state and working in another. Their fundamental right to respect for their private and family life became commodities in the negotiation. </p>
<p>The quid-pro-quo operation is often glossed as an exercise in pragmatism. Both the UK and EU deny that they are treating citizens as bargaining chips. According to the UK’s Brexit secretary, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/secretary-of-state-update-to-the-house-of-commons-on-eu-negotiations">David Davis</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are trying to find on both sides I think, pragmatic solutions. In the fourth round we offered the guaranteed right of return for settled citizens in the UK in exchange for onward movement rights for British citizens currently living in the EU.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“It can hardly get more bargaining-chippy,” one academic quickly <a href="https://twitter.com/ruviz/status/920297649428934656">noted</a> on Twitter.</p>
<p>The result of all this is continuing anxiety around citizens’ rights. This affects their personal, social and economic relations, as evidenced, for instance, in a <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/118364/new-europeans.pdf">report</a> submitted by the <a href="https://neweuropeans.net/">New Europeans</a> civil rights organisation to the European parliament. I was <a href="https://www.brineurope.com/single-post/2017/05/16/Take-care-of-citizens%E2%80%99-rights-first-BiE-contributes-evidence-to-European-Parliament-hearing">present</a> at the European parliament hearing when chief negotiator <a href="http://audiovisual.europarl.europa.eu/Assetdetail.aspx?id=9ede6d4e-953e-4095-a0ea-a77000f89e10">Guy Verhofstadt explained</a> that he had received somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 emails and letters from UK and EU citizens describing how they had been personally affected by the insecurity surrounding Brexit.</p>
<p>The threat of a “no deal” must also be seen as an aggravating factor. If the protection of rights depends entirely on reaching a deal, the state of precariousness will continue for as long as negotiations continue.</p>
<h2>Human rights</h2>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-by-the-department-for-exiting-the-european-union-and-the-european-commission">sixth round</a> of the Brexit negotiations soon to start, now is the time for the UK government and the EU27 to put an end to this sorry state of affairs. They could be acting in breach of international human rights law unless they do so, now.</p>
<p>I made <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/eu-justice-subcommittee/news-parliament-2017/brexit-citizens-right-hugheshattongian/">this claim</a> when I appeared before the House of Lords’ EU Justice Sub-Committee. There, I explained that <a href="https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/e6ec6f_52a32fe2c33b40f39edd617235747ac6.pdf">uncertainty in itself</a> could result in applications to the European Court of Human Rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on the right to a private and family life, in line with existing case law coming from Strasbourg. For example, the court has found that, where the uncertainty and precariousness of an individual’s situation affects the network of his or her personal, social and economic relations, which make up his or her private life, there can be an infringement of Article 8. The European Court of Human Rights also warns that states should ensure that a situation of insecurity like this should be <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3041233">as short-lived as possible</a>.</p>
<p>There is <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/libe/events-hearings.html?id=20170418CHE01361">ample evidence</a> from EU and UK citizens that the precarious and uncertain state of affairs, caused by the UK and the EU27’s inability to secure existing rights, has already had important consequences for them – in both material and psychological terms. It has affected their personal, social and economic relations, in a way that may constitute sufficient basis for legitimately calling upon the European Court of Human Rights to intervene.</p>
<p>Whether applications to Strasbourg would be successful would depend, of course, on the specific circumstances of cases reaching the court. The UK’s relationship with the European Court of Human Rights is currently evolving within a wider political – often polemical – context, which might also influence the outcome. The Strasbourg court might opt to defer to domestic authorities to avoid further tension with the UK over its threats to <a href="http://ukandeu.ac.uk/brexits-long-shadow-on-the-echr/">withdraw</a> from the European Convention.</p>
<p>But the political context argument cuts both ways. Faced with the dire prospect of 5m people living in limbo, the court might be strongly inclined to intervene, to actively protect their fundamental human right to private and family life and safeguard a core element of the European architecture of human rights. This is supposing that an application reaches it in good time of course.</p>
<p>I must add here that analysis of Strasbourg case law leaves little doubt that if EU citizens were subject to forced deportation from the UK, that act would trigger Article 8 of the ECHR. </p>
<p>In view of the above, the failure to secure the rights of European citizens remains a troubling oxymoron. Negotiations over the right to stay are ongoing, even though there is a right to stay under ECHR law (people cannot be deported), and prolonged uncertainty in itself may violate Article 8 of the ECHR.</p>
<p>In other words, citizens’ rights are non-negotiable. It’s high time that the UK and EU27 recognised this, and offered unilateral guarantees enabling EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU to continue to exercise the same rights as before, in accordance with international human rights law</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87030/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos receives funding from the Open Society Initiative for Europe (Open Society Forum). He is the founder and director of the Britain in Europe think tank, based at Brunel University London, and director of the Knowing Our Rights research project. Dr Giannoulopoulos is also acting as an academic adviser to the New Europeans civil rights group.
</span></em></p>The uncertainty itself could amount to infringing on the right to private and family life.Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos, Senior Lecturer in Law, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/860162017-10-23T14:54:01Z2017-10-23T14:54:01ZBrexit: what the EU and UK still don't agree on<p>As expected, the leaders of the EU27 <a href="http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2017/10/20-euco-art50-conclusions/">decided</a> at a summit in Brussels on October 20 that there had not been <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-in-the-eus-interest-to-press-ahead-with-brexit-negotiations-79289">“sufficient progress”</a> in the negotiations on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU to move on to talks about a post-Brexit trade relationship. </p>
<p>Some backbench British MPs and commentators, frustrated at the absence of talks on the trade relationship to date, would like the UK to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/18/theresa-may-urged-make-deal-no-deal-ultimatum-brexit-summit/">break off</a> negotiations and leave the EU without any withdrawal agreement. So how close is the UK to reaching the “sufficient progress” threshold – and what would it take to reach it by December, when the next European Council meeting is scheduled?</p>
<p>Until now, according to the EU27’s <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/european-council-article-50-guidelines-brexit-negotiations_en">guidelines</a> and <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/negotiating-directives-article-50-negotiations_en">negotiation directives</a>, the EU27 and the UK have been focusing on three main issues: Northern Ireland; financial contributions by the UK; and the position of EU27 citizens in the UK – and UK citizens in the EU27 states – after Brexit. </p>
<p>There are also a series of less politically sensitive technical transitional issues, such as the position of <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/position-paper-goods-placed-market-under-union-law-withdrawal-date_en">goods placed on the market</a> before Brexit day. Only once the EU27 judges sufficient progress has been reached in the three main issues will it be willing to discuss a transition to the UK’s future relationship with the EU27 (including trade issues), and the broad outline of that future relationship. </p>
<h2>Northern Ireland</h2>
<p>On <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/the-uk-governments-position-paper-on.html">Northern Ireland</a>, the two sides have agreed on the principle that there should be no “hard border” between the UK and the Republic of Ireland in future, but not yet on the details. The UK has stated that it is willing to continue the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/common-travel-area-cta/common-travel-area-cta">Common Travel Area</a> between Ireland and the UK by not checking people who cross the Irish border. Instead, it proposes to control immigration by checks on people after they enter the territory – for example by employers, landlords and universities. </p>
<p>The difficult issue is not the movement of people across the border, but the movement of goods. Once the UK side diverges from EU rules on trade with non-EU countries, the logical consequence would be the need to check that goods crossing the border into Ireland are consistent with EU rules. The UK’s planned <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customs-bill-legislating-for-the-uks-future-customs-vat-and-excise-regimes">Customs Bill</a> would set out a legal framework for a solution to this problem but the EU27 is not yet satisfied that it would work. Talks on this may need to be delayed until the second phase of the talks as the issue is linked to the future EU27-UK relationship.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/remarkable-flexibility-on-northern-ireland-from-the-eu-the-uk-government-should-take-note-83684">Remarkable flexibility on Northern Ireland from the EU – the UK government should take note</a>
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<h2>The divorce bill</h2>
<p>On the UK’s financial contributions, Theresa May’s recent <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/a-renaissance-of-brexit-talks-theresa.html">Florence speech</a> laid out plans for the UK to apply most EU rules during a “transition period” of about two years after Brexit day, including a continuation of current financial contributions. But the EU27 side also wants <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/position-paper-essential-principles-financial-settlement_en">more specific commitments on other issues</a>, such as EU staff pensions and EU budget payments that were committed prior to Brexit day but are due to be paid after. This is the most contentious part of this phase of the negotiations.</p>
<p><em><strong>Read more: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-brexit-divorce-bill-explained-74466">The Brexit divorce bill explained</a></strong></em></p>
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<h2>Citizens rights</h2>
<p>On citizens’ rights, many issues <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/joint-technical-note-eu-uk-position-citizens-rights-after-fourth-round-negotiations_en">are agreed</a> but some key points are not. The <a href="https://twitter.com/StevePeers/status/919533019765067776">EU27</a> is reluctant to guarantee voting rights, free movement of UK citizens within the EU27 and recognition of qualifications in all cases after Brexit. </p>
<p>For its part, the UK has <a href="https://twitter.com/StevePeers/status/919528838295678976">not yet agreed</a> to keep applying the current family reunion rules, the right of return, or the export of benefits for EU27 citizens after Brexit. There are also issues for the UK about the cut-off date after which EU27 citizens moving to the UK will no longer retain rights, EU27 citizens obtaining permanent residence, and the role of the European Court of Justice in the future. </p>
<p>It is likely that some further clarity on financial contributions, and <a href="https://twitter.com/StevePeers/status/921132232575799296">splitting the differences on citizens’ rights</a>, may be enough to constitute “sufficient progress” in the EU27’s view by December. But that simply leads to another set of difficult issues to negotiate. </p>
<h2>And beyond</h2>
<p>Although the UK has accepted the idea of a transition period, there will be many <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/bridge-over-troubled-legal-water-legal.html">questions of detail</a> to discuss – for instance, whether the UK should accept European Court of Justice rulings or new EU laws during that period. </p>
<p>As for the future EU-UK relationship, while the UK government has put forth suggestions on issues such as <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/foreign-policy-defence-and-development-a-future-partnership-paper">foreign policy</a> and police and criminal law <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/ukeu-security-cooperation-after-brexit.html">co-operation</a>, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/providing-a-cross-border-civil-judicial-cooperation-framework-a-future-partnership-paper">civil litigation</a> and <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/brexit-and-data-protection-tale-of-data.html">data protection</a>, it does not yet have a detailed position on the future trade relationship. </p>
<p>The cabinet is reportedly <a href="https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/922207181801373696">divided</a> on this issue. So, it may end up that for the Brexit talks, the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be an oncoming train.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Peers receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council: a Priority Brexit Grant on &#39;Brexit and UK and EU Immigration Policy&#39;. </span></em></p>Is there light at the end of the Brexit talks tunnel?Steve Peers, Professor of Law, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/835862017-09-12T12:04:19Z2017-09-12T12:04:19ZWhat new barriers can EU citizens expect in their daily lives after Brexit?<p>As the Brexit negotiations unravel, it is clear that the EU and the UK are <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/joint_table_citizens_rights_-_third_round.pdf">set on very different paths</a> in relation to the rights of both their citizens. </p>
<p>The EU <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/essential-principles-citizens-rights_en_3.pdf">wants</a> full protection for its citizens who are resident in the UK at the time of Brexit, and it wants this protection to continue for the lifetime of these citizens. The UK, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/621848/60093_Cm9464_NSS_SDR_Web.pdf">wants</a> to regain control over immigration as quickly as possible, bringing it under the purview of domestic courts rather than the Court of Justice of the European Union. This uncertainty might already be having an effect, with discrimination against EU nationals <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/12/uk-to-offer-eu-deals-on-foreign-policy-and-joint-military-operations">allegedly on the rise</a> over issues including renting properties and applying for jobs.</p>
<p>The UK government’s thinking has become clearer following the unauthorised publication of an internal draft document on <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/358064862/THE-BORDER-IMMIGRATION-AND-CITIZENSHIP-SYSTEM-AFTER-THE-UK-LEAVES-THE-EUROPEAN-UNION">immigration after Brexit</a>. In particular, the document – which is not official government policy – clarifies that immigration from the EU after Brexit will, by and large, be subject to normal immigration rules. But what does this mean in practice? </p>
<h2>It matters when you arrived</h2>
<p>EU citizens who arrived in the UK before the as yet undefined cut-off date <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/621848/60093_Cm9464_NSS_SDR_Web.pdf">will have</a> a path to get indefinite leave to remain; such a status is acquired after five years of lawful residence and pre-Brexit residence will be counted towards the five years. The leaked document suggests that these people with “pre-Brexit” status <a href="https://theconversation.com/home-office-leak-an-expert-reviews-the-proposed-brexit-immigration-system-83584">will continue</a> to be able to work and live in the UK in pretty much the same way as before. The main change would be in relation to the right to be joined by non–UK family after Brexit, as this will be made conditional upon earning a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/proof-income">minimum income and an English language test</a>. There are also likely to be increased bureaucratic ordeals to prove entitlement to pre-Brexit status. </p>
<p>The situation is going to be dramatically different for post-Brexit EU citizens. Here, the leaked document suggests a transition period of two years after Brexit in which EU citizens will be able to come and study, work or be in the UK unhindered for a temporary period of three to six months. After that they will have to register proving employment or evidence of a given minimum income. It is not clear whether those citizens will be eligible for welfare benefits and NHS provision.</p>
<p>After the transitional period, EU citizens who come to the UK are likely to be treated in roughly the same way as non-EU immigrants – not very well. They will need permission to work and reside (tourists will probably be exempt), and might have to pay <a href="https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/proof-income">hefty immigration fees</a>. Permission to work is likely to be conditional upon the needs of the British economy: at present, non-skilled and low-income non-EU immigrants can only come and work in the UK based on a sector-by-sector approach. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Landlords: tasked with checking the right of tenants to be in the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/joybot/6026505896/sizes/l">Joybot/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is also a non-concealed effort to avoid immigrants from settling – the most blatant element of which is the impossibility for immigrants earning less than a minimum of <a href="https://theconversation.com/broken-families-what-happens-to-couples-torn-apart-by-immigration-rules-73546">£18,600 to be joined</a> by family members. Studying in the UK could also become less attractive: higher university fees for foreign students, as well as language tests and immigration clearance will make other EU countries, such as Ireland and the Netherlands, much more attractive. </p>
<p>Working visas, minimum investment or capital requirements for self-employed people will <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/culture-media-and-sport-committee/inquiries/parliament-2015/impact-of-brexit-16-17/">inevitably affect</a> the <a href="https://ab-uk.com/curiosity/blogs/uk-creative-agency-move-hq-to-berlin-post-brexit/">pull factor</a> of London as a creative hub. Qualifications obtained in the EU might or might not be recognised, depending on future agreements. </p>
<h2>Hostile environment</h2>
<p>EU immigrants are likely to be subjected to the same immigration checks as non-EU immigrants, not only at the border but also <a href="https://theconversation.com/welcome-to-britain-in-2017-where-everybody-is-expected-to-be-a-border-guard-75148">within civil society</a> – from employers, universities, landlords and the NHS. But worst of all, the leaked document makes one thing clear: the government is <a href="http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2017/09/07/hostile-environment-2-0-post-brexit-migration-plans-are-all">considering</a> pursuing its <a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/hostile-environment-affect/">hostile environment policy</a> in relation <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-eu-citizens-deportations-rise-uk-home-office-referendum-a7935266.html">to EU citizens</a>. </p>
<p>This policy was devised during <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9291483/Theresa-May-interview-Were-going-to-give-illegal-migrants-a-really-hostile-reception.html">Theresa May’s</a> time at the Home Office and aims to do exactly what it says: create a hostile environment which deters immigrants <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/13/royal-college-nursing-nhs-recruitment-crisis">from coming to the UK</a>, and passively encourages them <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a37c2aee-565f-11e7-80b6-9bfa4c1f83d2">to leave</a>. Given the contribution of EU citizens to all sectors of the British economy, creating such a hostile environment might be tantamount to cutting one’s nose off to spite one’s face.</p>
<p>Although the final details are not yet clear, all this means that EU citizens should prepare to be asked for documentation when they interact with the state to prove their eligibility to live, work and access public services. This is most likely to be their passport as national ID will no longer be accepted as proof of identity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eleanor Spaventa has received funding from the European Commission and the European Parliament for independent academic research projects.</span></em></p>Britain is likely to become an increasingly hostile environment for European newcomers.Eleanor Spaventa, Professor of European Union Law, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/835842017-09-06T16:56:57Z2017-09-06T16:56:57ZHome Office leak: an expert reviews the proposed Brexit immigration system<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184912/original/file-20170906-9820-12fyf7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Vote Leave campaign promised Brexit would allow Britain to &#39;take back control&#39; of immigration. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK government has an in-tray piled high with tricky policy issues related to Brexit. Among the trickiest is how Britain’s rickety and <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldeucom/82/82.pdf">complicated immigration system</a> will manage the wholesale transformation of immigration status for millions of current and future residents. The leak of a Home Office draft <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/05/the-draft-home-office-post-brexit-immigration-policy-document-in-full">policy document</a> reveals that the government is buying time to help it manage three competing political demands. </p>
<p>First, it needs to show that it will control immigration to meet domestic Conservative party political demands. Second, it needs to establish principles and policies for entry selection and residence that suit powerful economic sectors that want continued easy access to European workers. And third, it needs a detailed negotiation offer for the EU. In addition to these political demands, it also needs an immigration system that is workable and practical.</p>
<p>The document is not yet approved government policy but it is telling nonetheless. The challenges are managed by a classic policymaking sleight-of-hand: buying time. It needs the time to improve the political consensus – and to set up the brand new digital immigration database on which the whole system will depend. The really difficult decisions are pushed to a later date, at least 18 months from now.</p>
<p>As with the government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-the-position-of-eu-citizens-in-the-uk-and-uk-nationals-in-the-eu">proposal</a> on the rights of EU nationals published on June 26, this leaked draft proposes a “temporary implementation period” that will start on a “specified date”. In fact, this is as yet an unspecified date, but will probably be the day of the UK’s exit from the EU. The period will end when the UK has a new set of immigration rules up and running: again, no date is specified, except that it is expected to be at least two years after the first (un)specified date.</p>
<p>During this indeterminate time, two things will happen. EU nationals already resident can apply for settled status or indefinite leave to remain (explained in <a href="https://theconversation.com/eu-citizens-proposal-a-lawyer-examines-the-detail-80111">more detail</a> in the June paper). And new arrivals from the EU will become subject to new rules of entry and residence. </p>
<h2>What’s new</h2>
<p>During the implementation period, EU nationals will have the right to enter and stay in the UK for three to six months. There is no commitment to an exact amount of time, but the analogy in the document is with non-EU nationals who can currently stay for <a href="https://www.gov.uk/standard-visitor-visa">six months</a> on a “standard visit” (whether a visa is needed depends on their country of origin). </p>
<p>During this time, all EU nationals will be considered to have a new status, called “deemed leave to remain”. During this period, EU nationals will be able to work, study, or live (if self-sufficient) in the UK – and will have more “rights” than current non-EU nationals. They may have to apply online for travel authorisation. </p>
<p>If EU nationals want to stay for longer, they will have to apply for a right to reside. They will be able to do so either as a worker, self-employed person, student or self-sufficient person. The definitions of these statuses, and the kinds of documents and information required will be key to determining how open the immigration rules will be in practice. </p>
<p>The leaked draft implies that these definitions will be clear and universally applied – a definite improvement on the current situation. They will also be strict and designed to prevent people from undertaking low-paid and precarious work. For employed and self-employed workers, a regular income of £157 per week will be required, along with evidence of employment or contracts for work. </p>
<p>It will not be possible to reside in the UK while seeking work, unless you can show you have “sufficient funds”. The paper says that self-sufficiency will be defined in line with current definitions for EU free movers, which already match those for non-EU nationals. The likely result is that during this “implementation period”, low-paid and precarious workers will become more mobile, moving more often to avoid having to apply for a worker resident permit, which they might not otherwise qualify for. This will make such workers’ lives more difficult, but it is not certain that it will reduce real migration levels.</p>
<p>To stay beyond the “deemed leave”, EU nationals will also have to register and provide biometric information that will be held on an ambitious new digital database, to be developed between now and the end of the implementation period. This is something that many other member states do, for EU and non-EU nationals – as the paper is keen to point out in a nod to its negotiating position with the EU. Once this residence permit has been granted, EU nationals will have rights to employment and residence for the time period allowed that are similar to, although not the same as, those they have now.</p>
<h2>Family and ‘high-skilled’ workers</h2>
<p>EU nationals currently <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-eus-rules-on-free-movement-allow-all-its-citizens-to-do-62186">have relatively extensive rights</a> when it comes to bringing their families with them to the UK. These rights (sometimes called Surinder Singh rights, <a href="https://theconversation.com/broken-families-what-happens-to-couples-torn-apart-by-immigration-rules-73546">after a particularly important legal case</a>) have been controversial in a number of EU member states, and they will be the first to be withdrawn by the UK in this implementation period.</p>
<p>Again testing the political waters, the paper suggests adopting a specific privileged status for “high-skilled” EU nationals. While EU nationals will be able to live and work in the UK, provided they fall into one of the four categories (worker, self-employed, student, self-sufficient), a residence permit would generally be for two years. For high-skilled workers, the paper suggests a residence permit for somewhere between three and five years. This would give such workers potential access to “settled status” under current UK law if they stayed for longer than five years. With this would come significantly better rights for residence, family unification, employment and social security. </p>
<p>And all this is just for the interim. Neither we – nor apparently the government – have any idea about what would happen after the Brexit transition period. Nonetheless, for the first time, the paper acknowledges the powerful interests from different regions and sectors that are pushing for as few restrictions as possible. </p>
<p>The paper provides only a few clues as to the changes being considered – and is quite explicit that circumstances may change significantly during the remaining Brexit negotiations and the elusively defined “implementation period”. Yet more uncertainty is on the cards for EU nationals considering their future in the UK while the government buys time to develop a workable immigration system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Carmel receives funding for a project called TRANSWEL. The funding is from NORFACE, a consortium comprising national social science research councils and the European Union. Her part of the project is paid for by the UK&#39;s Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>Inside the latest information on how the government plans to deal with EU nationals working in the UK.Emma Carmel, Senior Lecturer, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/816222017-07-27T02:04:03Z2017-07-27T02:04:03ZExplainer: Matt Canavan and the process of obtaining Italian citizenship<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179759/original/file-20170726-10549-1el1l4e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Matt Canavan says he did not know he was an Italian citizen, claiming his mother signed him up on his behalf.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Queensland senator <a href="https://youtu.be/65pmpe_5MI8">Matt Canavan’s claim</a> that his mother signed him up for Italian citizenship – without his knowledge or consent – is a convenient justification for an embarrassing oversight that could <a href="https://theconversation.com/constitutions-wide-net-catches-even-mps-who-had-no-idea-theyre-foreign-citizens-81573">cost him his political career</a>. Australia’s Constitution <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/%7E/link.aspx?_id=074367F0015D42C2B005207F5642376A&amp;_z=z%20-%20chapter-01_part-04_44">bars dual citizens</a> from standing for, or sitting in, federal parliament.</p>
<p>Canavan says he did not know he was an Italian citizen. He was not born in Italy and he has never lived in Italy – yet he was seemingly able to obtain Italian citizenship. How?</p>
<h2>Blood matters</h2>
<p>Italy’s citizenship policy is considered one of the most generous among European countries. Based on the <a href="http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100027515"><em>ius sanguinis</em> principle</a> (law of blood), it allows Italian descendants to pass on Italian citizenship to family members.</p>
<p>The policy does not put any limitations on Italian citizenship acquired in this way. If a person can demonstrate they have an Italian ancestor, they are entitled to apply for Italian citizenship and acquire full citizenship rights. This includes voting rights and a pension, together with a European Union passport.</p>
<p>Over the years, people with Italian blood have started what’s been described by former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato and others as the “ancestor hunt” to demonstrate their “Italianness” to Italian authorities.</p>
<h2>Exploitation of Italian citizenship policy</h2>
<p>Italian authorities have, in recent years, noticed an increasing number of citizenship applications coming from countries outside the Schengen Area (a collection of 26 European countries that allow visa-free travel). </p>
<p>This has <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=vmLEIYp90qoC&amp;">raised questions</a> about the possible exploitation of the policy by some Italian descendants who are not interested in actively becoming part of the Italian community. Instead, they are interested in gaining an EU passport.</p>
<p>In 2015, there were roughly 4.8 million Italian citizens <a href="http://www.aise.it/primo-piano/rapporto-migrantes-2016-la-mobilit%C3%A0-%C3%A8-una-risorsa/72426/160">living outside Italy</a>. In 2016, the largest presence of Italians abroad was <a href="http://www.esteri.it/mae/resource/doc/2016/07/annuario_statistico2016_r_070716.pdf">in Argentina</a>. </p>
<p>The South American country was one of the most popular destinations for Italian emigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries, but it is not a destination country today. However, it remains the country with the most Italian citizens living abroad, with an <a href="http://ucs.interno.gov.it/ucs/allegati/Download:Acquisto_concessione_e_reiezione_della_cittadinanza_italiana-5729609.htm">increasing number of applications</a> lodged by Italian descendants to obtain an Italian passport.</p>
<p>Australia has the tenth-largest number of Italian citizens abroad; it is home to 148,483 Italian citizens. However, potentially thousands of Italian descendants (second-, third- and fourth-generation Italians) living in Australia could demonstrate to Italian consulates and embassies that they have “Italian blood” and obtain an Italian passport – as Canavan’s mother seems to have done.</p>
<h2>Are all Italo-Australians Italian citizens?</h2>
<p>Not all Italo-Australians are de-facto Italian citizens. For example, despite his Italian background, Greens leader Richard Di Natale is not an Italian citizen.</p>
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<p>To obtain Italian citizenship, a formal request must be submitted to an Italian embassy or consulate. This process requires a significant number of steps and <a href="http://www.consmelbourne.esteri.it/consolato_melbourne/en/per-i-cittadini/comites.html">documents attached</a> to the application. These include birth certificates and other documents related to the main applicant and their relatives to prove the claim to citizenship is valid.</p>
<p>Most importantly, the main applicant (if 18 years of age or older) needs to sign these documents. This point is very important in relation to Canavan’s case, as he claims his mother applied on his behalf, despite him being older than 18 at the time. </p>
<p>Italo-Australians with dual citizenship can also renounce their Italian citizenship.</p>
<h2>The right to dual citizenship</h2>
<p>Allowing people to have more than one citizenship is considered the norm in the majority of Western countries. Having more than one citizenship is no longer considered a violation of the trust between a country and its people.</p>
<p>A passport has lost its original meaning over time, too. It has largely become a mere tool to facilitate people movement and give greater opportunities to those who have more than one citizenship.</p>
<p>It might be perceived as a great privilege or undeserved gift, as in the case of Italy’s generous legislation – especially when the gift is an EU passport. But since this is a right, why should people renounce it? </p>
<p>Australia allows its citizens to have dual citizenship. And it cannot control the regulation of other countries’ policies.</p>
<p>The Italian government is not even remotely considering revising the existing policy regarding Italians abroad. The pillar of the policy remains the <em>ius sanguinis</em> principle, and people with Italian blood will always be Italian – if they want to be.</p>
<p>While Australia’s High Court will need to rule on Canavan’s eligibility to continue his political career, in the eyes of Italian law he will always be Italian – with or without citizenship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81622/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chiara De Lazzari is affiliated with the Contemporary European Studies Association of Australia (CESAA).
. </span></em></p>Matt Canavan was seemingly able to obtain Italian citizenship without being born or spending any time in Italy.Chiara De Lazzari, Teaching and Research Associate at the University of Melbourne, University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/805622017-07-11T08:58:02Z2017-07-11T08:58:02ZWhat's now at stake for UK citizens living in the rest of the EU<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177536/original/file-20170710-17622-1ukdumf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are over 300,000 British nationals living in Spain. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kekyalyaynen / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Self-styled champion of all EU citizens, the European Parliament has warned that it may veto the UK’s withdrawal agreement from the EU. A public letter penned on July 9 by its lead Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt and a group of cross-party MEPs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/09/brexit-offer-eu-citzens-veto-british-porposal-european-parliament">stated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The European Union has a common mission to extend, enhance and expand rights, not reduce them … The European Parliament will reserve its right to reject any agreement that treats EU citizens, regardless of their nationality, less favourably than they are at present.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite arguments that a unilateral offer to protect the rights of EU citizens would constitute both a gesture of goodwill and a politically astute move, on June 26 the UK government elected to make an <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-the-position-of-eu-citizens-in-the-uk-and-uk-nationals-in-the-eu">offer</a> conditional on reciprocity. The details of what this means for EU citizens living in the UK after Brexit are vague. The position for UK nationals living in the rest of the EU is even more so.</p>
<p>The UK government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-the-position-of-eu-citizens-in-the-uk-and-uk-nationals-in-the-eu">policy paper</a> on the issue largely focuses on what is on offer for EU citizens in the UK. <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/all-of-life-is-changed-impact-of-brexit.html">Our conclusions</a> on how this translates to UK nationals elsewhere in the EU are derived from what reciprocating the UK’s offer would mean.</p>
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<h2>What the UK is offering</h2>
<p>On a handful of issues, the UK’s proposal provides some detail as to what UK nationals living in the other 27 EU member states (EU-27) can expect. For example, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/27/fewer-britons-in-rest-of-europe-than-previously-thought-ons-research">21% who are over 65-years-old</a> will be relieved to learn that it has committed to continuing to “export and uprate the UK state pension within the EU”. This implies that their pensions will not be frozen, but will be increased in line with pension increases in the UK. </p>
<p>It also intends to maintain its position on child benefit, meaning UK citizens will still be able to claim the child benefits to which they are entitled when they live abroad. For those UK citizens undertaking education in another EU country, their right to remain in the country will apply until course completion. Those with residence rights will also have the same access to tuition fees and any maintenance grants as the host country’s nationals.</p>
<p>Healthcare poses greater complexities. The UK proposes a new arrangement “akin to the EHIC [European Health Insurance Card] scheme”, which <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcareabroad/EHIC/Pages/about-the-ehic.aspx">entitles</a> those covered by their home NHS to medical treatment in another EU country. But given that all EU and non-EU states currently party to the EHIC scheme also have some form of free movement agreement, this suggestion must be in the category of having your cake and eating it.</p>
<p>The UK’s proposal does not, however, address numerous other issues, including equal access to housing, equal tax benefits, and whether UK citizens will be allowed to reside in an EU-27 country after Brexit.</p>
<h2>What the logic of reciprocity means</h2>
<p>The UK’s proposal rejects the “acquired rights” approach of <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/essential-principles-citizens-rights_en_0.pdf">the EU stance</a>. Instead, the UK government ultimately seeks to align the status and processing of EU nationals with its national immigration law. This will follow a cut-off date and grace period (as yet unspecified) after which EU citizens living in the UK will be subject to the same rules as non-EU citizens. </p>
<p>Disputes would be settled through national courts without any protection from a supranational authority, such as the EU’s Court of Justice. It would be significantly more difficult for EU citizens to enforce their residence and other rights than at present. </p>
<p>If the EU-27 were to reciprocate the offer, UK citizens in the EU-27 would also become subject to their host country’s immigration laws. This means they will have what’s called “third country national” (TCN) status. This carries rights in EU law. </p>
<p>The EU’s <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32003L0109&amp;from=en">Long-Term Residence (LTR) Directive</a> provides legal protection to some TCNs and governs the scheme by which they can acquire long-term residence status. Under the directive, this status must be granted where certain conditions are met. </p>
<p>Of course, national authorities retain some discretion and some residence matters, such as healthcare entitlements, may be devolved to regional or local level. TCNs with long-term residence status must in many respects be treated equally to nationals by their host country. For example, they have equal access to employment, self-employment, recognition of their qualifications, tax benefits and pensions. </p>
<p>Long-term residency has been described as a “<a href="http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/en/publications/the-longterm-residence-status-as-a-subsidiary-form-of-eu-citizenship(4905f8ac-a068-4bbd-913b-60e862495fb5)/export.html">subsidiary form of EU citizenship</a>”, but it does not have all the perks of the full version. States can confine social assistance for long-term residents to core benefits, such as care for pregnant women, and can restrict some access to employment. </p>
<h2>Comparisons with the EU proposal</h2>
<p>The EU proposal is a better offer for UK citizens resident in the EU-27 than long-term residence status would be. That is not a surprise – the EU wants to protect its 3.2m citizens in the UK, and offers something more than TCN status to the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/articles/whatinformationisthereonbritishmigrantslivingineurope/jan2017">1.2m</a> UK citizens in the rest of the EU. The EU proposal includes additional protections exclusive to EU citizens, such as social security coordination rules and supplementary rights for the free movement of workers.</p>
<p>Under either the EU proposal or as long-term residents, UK nationals in the EU-27 come out relatively unscathed. Nevertheless, while the gap between these two options is noticeable, it is far from the <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/all-of-life-is-changed-impact-of-brexit.html">chasm</a> between EU citizens’ current position in the UK and the UK’s proposals for their post-Brexit future. </p>
<p>If the polls are to be believed and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/01/poll-european-eu-rights-brexit">60%</a> of UK nationals want to keep their EU citizenship, the UK government has a greater stake in this than its comparably lukewarm proposals suggest. And the stake is greater still if the cost is “crashing out” of the EU without a withdrawal agreement at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80562/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tamara Hervey receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (Brexit Priority Grant ES/R002053/1). She has previously received funding from the European Commission.
She was a member of the Advisory Board of &#39;Healthier In&#39;, a campaign group in the EU referendum debate.
Sarah McCloskey is working as a research assistant with Tamara on a project about the legal implications of Brexit.
</span></em></p>Now the UK and the EU have made their opening offers on citizens' rights, an EU law expert examines what this means for UK nationals living abroad.Tamara Hervey, Jean Monnet Professor of European Union Law, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/805182017-07-07T15:50:47Z2017-07-07T15:50:47ZEuropean law expert: UK has sparked race to the bottom that will strip citizens of their rights<p>Now that both the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-the-position-of-eu-citizens-in-the-uk-and-uk-nationals-in-the-eu">UK government</a> and the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/citizens-rights-essential-principles-draft-position-paper_en.pdf">EU</a> have set out their proposals for citizens’ rights after Brexit, it’s clear that both take the concept of reciprocity as a starting point.</p>
<p>But the EU and the UK have a profoundly different understanding of what reciprocity means. While the EU approaches reciprocity as a moral principle and legal guarantee in its offer, the UK merely uses it as a technique to delay making <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/08/mps-reject-brexit-bill-amendment-to-protect-eu-citizens-in-uk">commitments</a> and with which to make <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/dbd24ba4-579e-11e7-9fed-c19e2700005f?mhq5j=e3">threats</a> that its offer is dependent on the EU doing the same. But because the substance and legal guarantees of the two proposals is very different, the impact on people’s lives would be too. </p>
<p>There are good reasons to argue that unilaterally guaranteeing citizens’ rights is not actually the most appropriate solution for Brexit negotiations. During the recent UK election campaign, Labour <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-39703151/labour-to-guarantee-rights-of-eu-citizens-in-uk">offered</a> to unilaterally guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the UK. This seems morally the right thing to do as it would avoid making these citizens a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-protect-4-5m-people-from-becoming-brexit-bargaining-chips-79643">bargaining chip</a> in Brexit negotiations. But at the same time, it would make UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU more exposed to trade-offs between their rights and other points under negotiation. </p>
<p>Unilateral solutions also fail to recognise the cross-border dimension of the lives of the individuals involved, both EU and British citizens. EU citizenship provides a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-eus-rules-on-free-movement-allow-all-its-citizens-to-do-62186">comprehensive set of rights</a>, such as the recognition of qualifications, healthcare co-ordination between member states and rules to transfer entitlements, such as pension contributions, to another country. Such rules require international solutions and cannot simply be resolved by unilateral action from one party at the negotiating table. </p>
<p>Even offering British citizenship to all EU citizens in the UK, as former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/news/europe/eu-policy-agenda/brexit/house/house-magazine/86047/yanis-varoufakis-only-theresa-may-can">suggested</a>, is not an appropriate solution as it would not account for such cross-border issues. <a href="https://theconversation.com/dual-nationality-and-the-hurdles-facing-britons-who-want-to-keep-eu-citizenship-after-brexit-74470">Not all</a> EU countries allow dual citizenship and some people may have to give up their citizenship of origin if they want to take British citizenship. </p>
<h2>The case for reciprocity</h2>
<p>The concept of reciprocity is therefore a more appropriate guide to dealing with the rights of the 3.3m EU citizens in the UK and 1.2m British citizens in the EU after Brexit. </p>
<p>There is a strong moral argument for reciprocity. Both British citizens in the EU and EU citizens in the UK have built up their lives in a foreign country in the legitimate expectation that EU citizenship would protect them. They were never asked to obtain visas, were never told their stay would be temporary, and (with the exception of national voting rights) were treated in pretty much the same way as nationals. They deserve to be treated equally in the opportunity to retain the life and rights they have legitimately acquired. </p>
<p>The EU has taken reciprocity seriously as a moral starting point. It has <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/citizens-rights-essential-principles-draft-position-paper_en.pdf">offered</a> that all the rights of both EU citizens in the UK and the British in the rest of the EU will be protected for life. It wants to ensure this via an international agreement between the UK and EU that sets out in detail citizens’ current rights for life, to be protected by judicial control of the Court of Justice of the EU. </p>
<p>Under such an international agreement, which can be part of the UK’s Article 50 withdrawal agreement from the EU, or be a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-protect-4-5m-people-from-becoming-brexit-bargaining-chips-79643">separate citizens’ agreement</a>, each set of citizens acts as a safeguard for the rights of the other. Without such an international agreement, these citizens lose each other as safeguards and will be at the whim of national governments, which will undoubtedly undermine the rights on which they have legitimately built up their lives. </p>
<p>The EU might be willing to compromise by accepting an international court other than the Court of Justice to control the agreement, but legally safeguarding reciprocity at an international level <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/20/european-parliament-will-welcome-britain-back-if-voters-veto-brexit">is a strict condition for the EU</a> in its Brexit negotiating position. As Antonio Tajani, president of the European parliament, said on a recent trip to the UK: “For us, the agreement is [to have the same rights] as today [and] yesterday, tomorrow … For us, it is a priority and it is a red line.”</p>
<h2>Moral and legal principle</h2>
<p>In contrast, the UK government’s rhetoric fails to recognise reciprocity as a moral and legal principle. Its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/27/theresa-may-offer-generous-eu-citizens-tories-rights-uk">offer</a> is far less generous than the EU’s. Unlike the EU, the UK does not propose to guarantee the rights of EU citizens for life. It is ambiguous on who can retain them, and it undermines some existing rights, such as the ability for EU citizens to bring a family member to live with them in the UK. </p>
<p>Its <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-the-position-of-eu-citizens-in-the-uk-and-uk-nationals-in-the-eu">proposal</a> on citizens’ rights is actually unilateral: it intends to act unilaterally on the residence status of EU citizens by turning them into immigrants under general UK immigration law. This implies that EU citizens living in the UK will lose rights that were specific to them.</p>
<p>If the EU “reciprocates” on this offer, it would mean each of the 27 individual member states would deal with the residence requirements for the British living in their countries. This would leave the British in the rest of the EU at the mercy of 27 different and changing immigration laws on which the UK would no longer have any leverage. </p>
<p>So, instead of accepting reciprocity as a moral principle and legal guarantee, the UK is turning it into a race to the bottom at the expense of both EU citizens in the UK and its own citizens in the EU.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stijn Smismans receives funding from the European Research Council for research on European policy-making, but that research is not directly related to the topic of this article. </span></em></p>The EU sees reciprocity on citizens rights as a moral principle and legal guarantee. The UK sees it as a negotiating technique.Stijn Smismans, Professor of European Law, Director of the Centre for European Law and Governance., Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/805672017-07-06T12:42:44Z2017-07-06T12:42:44ZIf you think David Davis has U-turned on ID cards, think again<p>The government’s recent <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-the-position-of-eu-citizens-in-the-uk-and-uk-nationals-in-the-eu/the-united-kingdoms-exit-from-the-european-union-safeguarding-the-position-of-eu-citizens-living-in-the-uk-and-uk-nationals-living-in-the-eu">proposal</a> on EU citizens’ rights after Brexit included an offer to allow those resident in the UK to apply for “settled status”. This new status would be evidenced with a residence document, including the possible collection of biometric data. </p>
<p>The suggestion immediately raised concerns that the government was introducing ID cards <a href="http://www.libdems.org.uk/davey_is_government_pushing_id_cards_through_the_backdoor">by the backdoor</a>. The previous Labour government’s plans to introduce national ID cards proved deeply unpopular and were ultimately scrapped by the coalition government. </p>
<p>At first glance, the proposal seems deeply ironic. It was, after all, David Davis, the secretary of state for exiting the EU, who campaigned for so many years against ID cards. In 2008, when he was shadow home secretary, he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/12/speeches">resigned his seat</a> in opposition to the then Labour government’s record on civil liberties. And in 2014, he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/04/mps-david-davis-and-tom-watson-in-court-challenge-over-surveillance-act">launched a legal challenge</a> against the coalition government’s <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/27/pdfs/ukpga_20140027_en.pdf">Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/12/mp-david-davis-calls-limit-uk-surveillance-powers-european-court-justice">arguing</a> that the government was infringing on civil liberties in seeking to store citizens’ data.</p>
<p>But in fact, his support for residence documents for EU citizens living in the UK shouldn’t be a surprise at all. Davis of course <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/06/civil-liberties-david-davis-has-become-complete-hypocrite-and-im-not-sure-he">denies</a> that EU citizens will be forced to carry ID cards – merely have “documentation” to prove their status. But despite his former abhorrence of ID cards, his backing of documentation for EU citizens actually fits neatly with his value system and conception of national identity.</p>
<p>When he resigned as an MP, Davis <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7451552.stm">criticised</a> what he called the “insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms”. His opposition to ID cards was based on his <a href="http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2006/02/david_davis_lea.html">argument</a> that they erode the “hard-won rights of British people”. He did <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/sep/26/idcards.civilliberties">oppose</a> ID cards for non-UK nationals too, but on the basis that their use would mark “the start of the introduction of compulsory ID cards for all by stealth” rather than a point of principle about the freedoms of foreigners in the UK.</p>
<p>His opposition to the EU has taken a similar form. Recently, <a href="http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/02/david-davis-britain-would-be-better-off-out-of-the-eu-and-heres-why.html">he argued</a> that remaining in the EU would sacrifice “real opportunities to improve the lot of our people”. In the same speech, he praised the historical foundations of the European project, but maintained that “this history is not our history”. Davis defends what he sees as “British” values, based on his understanding of British history and traditions. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.zora.uzh.ch/41247/1/wep_bornschier.pdf">Scholars</a> have argued that there is a new cleavage in globalised societies between those who hold liberal, universalist values and those who subscribe to a more traditionalist worldview. The latter seek to defend exclusive communities based on shared cultural traditions. They tend to promote national sovereignty, restrictions on immigration, and traditional moral values. Such worldviews stand in opposition to universalist values that promote, for example, an internationalist outlook, cultural diversity, and human rights. </p>
<p>It’s clear that, for Davis, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1465116505057816">national identity</a> is an exclusive concept. He has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/08/david-davis-stasi-gestapo-surveillance-tory-civil-liberties">rejected</a> the idea that he opposed ID cards because of libertarian values, calling himself a “rule of law enthusiast” who was defending, in his words, “the judicial tradition of Britain”. He also defends traditional moral values, by <a href="https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10162/david_davis/haltemprice_and_howden/divisions?policy=826">opposing</a> same-sex marriage and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3274245.stm">calling for</a> a reintroduction of the death penalty.</p>
<p>To Davis, being European is fundamentally incompatible with being British. He did not oppose ID cards because he is committed to the universal rights of the individual, but because he viewed them as contrary to “British traditions”. It is likely that in his view, EU nationals have little right to expect enjoyment of the “British freedoms” he has long defended. Rather, such rights are to be reserved exclusively for British citizens.</p>
<h2>Closed club</h2>
<p>The value divide that explains much of Davis’ politics also lies behind Brexit more generally. And pursuing this agenda will only deepen it. We know that identities become <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319516103">strengthened</a> and more polarised in periods of crisis. In order to make sense of events such as Brexit, we interpret them according to existing identities and understanding of the world, which entrenches them further. </p>
<p>Since the referendum, the government has constructed a narrow and exclusive conception of the national community. Brexit has been framed as the clear and emphatic <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/02/theresa-may-dare-parliament-defy-will-people-loses-article-50/">“will of the people”</a>. This despite the narrow result and the fact that so many people who stood to lose rights were excluded from the franchise. The government’s proposal on EU citizens’ rights is merely a formalisation of this exclusive, traditionalist conception of the national community.</p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/personal-values-brexit-vote/">Studies</a> have also shown that support for traditionalist values were a strong predictor of voting Leave. But when my colleagues and I conducted a survey of people attending the pro-EU <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/unite-for-europe-brexit-march-london-edinburgh-tens-of-thousands-against-european-union-eu-latest-a7649686.html">March for Europe</a> in London, we found that one of the most common concerns was that Britain is shifting away from being an inclusive, cosmopolitan, internationalist country, and towards intolerance and xenophobia. Many also expressed concern about a loss of human rights and environmental protections, and feared a breakdown of international cooperation and social solidarity.</p>
<p>On a personal level, EU citizens spoke of being treated as “second-class citizens”, unwelcome in the UK but, having been resident here for so long, also alien in their country of origin. And British citizens who voted for Remain expressed the feeling that they had been “robbed” of their European identities, that Brexit clashes with their fundamental, core belief in diversity and liberalism.</p>
<p>The proposal to create a <em>de facto</em> register of EU citizens means that they will be officially re-categorised as a distinct group with a smaller set of rights. They might be allowed to live in the same geographical space, but a division is to be drawn between British citizens and EU citizens nonetheless. </p>
<p>The government’s proposal to require EU citizens to prove their status with official documents does not clash with Davis’ opposition to ID cards. It actually allows him to defend the very same exclusive conception of “British traditions” that also drove him to oppose ID cards in the first place. His views reflect a broader division in the UK – and one that is not likely to disappear in the immediate future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlotte Galpin is also a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen. Her research has been supported by the University of Copenhagen’s 2016 Excellence Programme for Interdisciplinary Research (project title ‘Europe and New Global Challenges’).</span></em></p>Government plans to introduce official documents for EU citizens to prove their right to live in the UK have some people surprised.Charlotte Galpin, Lecturer in German and European Politics, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/801112017-06-27T15:26:13Z2017-06-27T15:26:13ZEU citizens proposal: a lawyer examines the detail<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175637/original/file-20170626-304-bz812.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is it any wonder they feel like bargaining chips?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Great news has been issued by the good people of the British government to all those EU citizens living in the UK feeling uncertain about their future after Brexit – they could soon qualify for “settled status”. What they must do now, however, is wait. Basically, they should do what they’ve been doing for the past year – and be patient. </p>
<p>This is the main message from the government’s “fair and generous” plan, published as a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-the-position-of-eu-citizens-in-the-uk-and-uk-nationals-in-the-eu">policy paper</a> on June 26. It should be said that this paper provides many things that do show the government has listened to people’s concerns about this issue. It has, in particular, clearly heard the almost unchallenged agreement that EU citizens already in the UK should be allowed to stay and that removing individuals will be close to impossible.</p>
<p>It is therefore offering the right to apply for settled status to EU citizens who have been living in the UK for five years. This is legally sensible and provides clarity and certainty – particularly since we now know that family members yet to arrive in the UK will be included. In this way, the new status, on paper, promises to be future proof, even after Brexit.</p>
<h2>Benefits, pensions and healthcare</h2>
<p>Among the greatest concerns for EU citizens living in the UK is what happens to their pensions after Brexit, and what their rights would be in terms of access to healthcare and benefits. </p>
<p>The government is now promising to protect access to UK pensions. It also says it wants to “seek to protect” access to healthcare. It even goes so far as to say that it wants to have an agreement in place that is similar to the existing European health insurance card. This would allow travellers between the UK and the EU continuous access to healthcare when abroad. We need to be realistic, though. Negotiations have only just started and this forms part of a daunting wish list.</p>
<p>Prime minister Theresa May also claims, with this plan, that EU law will no longer apply in the UK through the <a href="https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/court-justice_en">Court of Justice of the European Union</a> (CJEU). This is mainly a point of principle about sovereignty point rather than a practical move. as there is no practical need. The government argues that new UK laws will be passed to define EU citizen rights after Brexit, so the ties to the CJEU can be cut.</p>
<p>Theoretically, that’s possible but it will be very difficult to completely leave the CJEU’s jurisdiction, unless the UK manages to break free entirely and secure a very distinct deal. Even then, it’s likely that the General Court (part of the CJEU) will oversee that. Even Norway and the other EEA member states have to apply the court’s rules.</p>
<p>Perhaps May is simply trying to keep a promise to pro-Brexit voters: after all, one of the Leave campaign’s more emotive arguments was that Britain needed to “break free” from the European justice system. But this argument has always overlooked the fact that the CJEU can only pass judgement when it’s asked to, and where it has competence. It cannot just jump in and “tell” the UK Supreme Court what to do.</p>
<p>The court’s case law is also highly interwoven with the principles and rights also applying to EU citizens. In a way, even if the UK succeeds in passing matching domestic law, the ECJ could still arguably remain influential. We are, after all, talking about the status of EU citizens in the UK. What’s more, the UK also seems to be overlooking the fact that British citizens living abroad are likely to remain subject to the CJEU.</p>
<h2>The flaws</h2>
<p>The pledge is being presented as a good deal for EU citizens living in the UK, but many are livid in the wake of this announcement. They have spent months of wages and time on clarifying their status only to be told that unless they intend to become British citizens, the piece of paper they have been worrying about – their <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-eu-nationals-in-britain-are-hurrying-to-get-one-piece-of-paper-64830">residency document</a> – will be worth nothing.</p>
<p>They are “invited” to go through a similar, albeit potentially less painful, process again. The government is promising reasonable costs, but no freebies. It is also promising a streamlined process, but no acceptance of the current documents. Many people have essentially flushed £65 down the drain.</p>
<p>Then there are questions about the various categories of citizen that will be created by these plans. Not only will the UK differentiate between EU citizens and other international members of British society, it will also create subcategories for this group. There will be the good (economically active) and the bad (not working). Access to benefits, healthcare and pensions is promised to the good while the most vulnerable remain ignored – not forgotten, mind you, as they seem to have been deliberately excluded.</p>
<p>How the status will be evidenced is also another matter. Is a system of ID cards going to be implemented? Will it apply only to a specific group within the UK’s population? Interestingly, it was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/12/speeches">David Davis</a>, the secretary of state for exiting the EU, who once resigned as shadow home secretary over the issue of ID cards, arguing they were intrusive. </p>
<p>The government is suggesting that people with settled status can move away from the UK for two years without losing their rights. This sounds reasonable, but is it realistic? European citizens are used to free movement. How will their border hopping be monitored? Will they be given a unique passport that they use like a loyalty card? When it’s full, will they need to stay put?</p>
<p>The government’s plan is a good start – so long as all the good things in it survive the legislative process. It’s not the worst possible offering, but it is far from being the best.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80111/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Wesemann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government is offering 'settled status' to address Brexit fears. But is it enough?Anne Wesemann, Lecturer in Law, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/800162017-06-23T15:31:58Z2017-06-23T15:31:58ZStill too many holes in Theresa May's promise to EU citizens<p>A full year after the EU referendum, the British prime minister has finally issued a statement on the status of the 3m <a href="https://www.the3million.org.uk/">European citizens</a> living in the UK. These people have spent the year lobbying governments, parliaments and relevant organisations all over Europe for clarity about their post-Brexit rights – as well as those of British people living in <a href="https://theconversation.com/hope-for-uk-nationals-living-abroad-after-brexit-61871">Europe</a>. Now that a statement has finally been made, they are supposed to feel reassured. </p>
<p>But there is little substance so far. While Theresa May’s offer to award all non-UK EU citizens the right to remain – provided they have been living in the country lawfully for a minimum of five years – might appear to be fair and generous, it would have been very difficult for her to do anything else. </p>
<p>The law, in principle, cannot be changed retrospectively. Many non-UK EU citizens already qualify for permanent residency. May has promised a simpler system that doesn’t involve much paperwork but she has not provided any clarity on how “lawfully” will be defined. She also hasn’t proposed a different set of rights altogether. Once these rights are acquired, any change in the law is not meant to take effect in relation to the past – only the future.</p>
<p>May and her advisers felt the need to point out that those arriving “lawfully before Brexit” would receive the same treatment as UK citizens and consequently not be discriminated against. As long as the UK is a member state of the EU, the UK can’t do anything else but that. May was then stating the obvious. She outlined the law as it currently stands and did not provide a solution for the very complex problem that lies ahead – what happens after Brexit?</p>
<h2>The mysterious cut-off point</h2>
<p>The idea that there can be some kind of cut-off point to decide who does and doesn’t qualify for residency rights also shows a lack of awareness of EU law. The UK seems to be under the impression that any point before the official end of its EU membership can be set as a cut off. Only people entering the country before that time, it apparently believes, would automatically qualify for residency rights. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/22/theresa-may-makes-fair-and-serious-offer-on-rights-of-eu-citizens-in-uk">May’s announcement</a> refers to any date between March 29 2017, when Article 50 was triggered, and March 2019, when the two-year negotiation period would officially end. </p>
<p>But again, there is no legal way for the UK to limit free movement from the other member states until it has left the union. There cannot be a legal cut-off point before March 29 2019, unless all EU member states and their parliaments agree to change the law.</p>
<p>Interestingly, May mentioned a special category of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/four-ways-britain-could-guarantee-the-right-to-remain-for-eu-citizens-after-brexit-72692">settled status</a>” for EU nationals living in the UK. This type of arrangement has been proposed in various forms over the past year. In its current iteration, it seems to mean promising specific equal rights for EU citizens who have lived in the UK for five years or more. </p>
<p>This is a more sensible part of the plan. Many EU citizens affected have been concerned about their access to pensions. The member states have a complex agreement that ensures access to pensions wherever in the EU an EU citizen settles to retire. May has insisted that her offer depends on reciprocity from the EU. The EU has already made a firm commitment to <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/annex-recommendation-uk-eu-negotiations_3-may-2017_en.pdf">protecting pensions</a>, specifically addressing issues beyond welfare. </p>
<p>Finally, May has said the UK government doesn’t want anybody to be forced to leave or see their family split up.</p>
<p>But is it serious? Is it a strong offering? Only the detail of the government paper, due to be published shortly, will answer that. May’s statement falls short of addressing many issues – some of them relate to family members living abroad who may want to be reunited with their UK-resident relatives. Others relate to the rights of spouses and future children. Can those qualifying for residency move to another member state and return and expect the same rights when they return? Will they be put on a list or given specific identification documents to be allowed to travel back into the country?</p>
<p>Yes, some of these are practicalities that can be defined as we go along, but let’s not forget: 12 months of uncertainty is a long time for anybody looking to plan for their personal future. How much longer should EU citizens be expected to hold their breath?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Wesemann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After a whole year, the British PM has finally said something about post-Brexit rights for people living in the UK.Anne Wesemann, Lecturer in Law, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.